


could i correct the dawn or the big red machine: snapshots of a progression

by inkrush81



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam 'I'm done with your shit™' Parrish, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Slow Burn, Fuckbuddies To Lovers, Hickeys, Joseph Kavinsky Lives, Joseph Kavinsky is His Own Warning, M/M, Past Abuse, Power Dynamics, Property Disputes in Henrietta, Relationship Negotiation, The opposite of a slow burn, fic based on fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-05-02 13:33:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 42,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14545818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkrush81/pseuds/inkrush81
Summary: Adam chose this. There was no one else to blame. Well, maybe Kavinsky. Maybe a little.Or the results of Adam's one night stand with Kavinsky were not as cut and dry as he would have thought.





	1. act i: resolve to slowly run in circles

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [of your own free will](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6021109) by [kiiouex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex). 



 

 

 

 

 

act i: resolve to slowly run in circles

 

 

 

 

 

Adam had resigned himself to the fact that he’d complicated a situation that was already delicate the night before. 

It was always Gansey Adam had thought he’d needed to maintain a careful balance with, and despite the rent coming out to have been Ronan all along, it was still Gansey who’s reaction to this...risky behavior Adam was most apprehensive over. Gansey worried about him—needlessly at times—and, usually, Adam could put Gansey’s concern from his mind. Today, however, standing in front of the small vanity mirror above the sink in his tiny en suite bathroom, Adam stared at his reflection, knowing that _this_ would only stoke that _concern_.

There was no way to hide the mess Kavinsky had made of his neck. The hickeys had bloomed in the night and there were enough of them that they had more or less become one large multicolored bruise. Starting below his jaw and trailing all the way down to his collar bone. Most of the blotches of color were a blushed rose, but there were a couple Adam remembered Kavinsky sucking at particularly hard, the graze of his teeth, the tingle of Adam’s own nerves and arousal as Kavinsky had marked him a deep wine shade or a violent purple. 

Adam took a centering breath and met his reflection’s eyes.

Maybe Gansey would be right to be concerned. Adam could admit that getting into Kavinsky’s car as easily as he had the night before was a behavioral red flag; a sign that he wasn’t thinking straight and acting a little too recklessly. But Gansey wasn’t going to find out _who’s_ car Adam had got into and if he did, well it didn’t matter. Adam could handle himself. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been a lot closer to people who were way worse than _Joseph Kavinsky_ and he was still here to tell the tale. 

Adam wasn't going to be able to hide _this_ , so he wouldn’t even try. He’d walk to Aglionby—his bike was still over at Monmouth—and go to classes like being covered in hickeys was no big deal. Because, when everything was said and done, it honestly wasn't. At least not in the way that meant he’d skip classes he was paying a fortune for just to avoid being questioned about bruises given to him by his _father_.

Adam chose this. There was no one else to blame. 

Well, maybe Kavinsky. Maybe a little. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Look who got some last night!”

“More like she took a bite of _him_!”

Adam fake smiled and nodded through the cat-calls and the shouts of 'Go Parrish!' as he headed to first period. 

Adam had made a habit of never talking about his personal business at Ag. He’d never bothered to correct the boys who thought they knew him because of where he came from. Still certain events in freshman year had branded him as awkward, strange, quite possibly not right—and maybe...they were probably correct to some degree. Adam still tried. There was more than one reason he needed to attend Ag, after all. Before Gansey most of Adam’s friends had been from science club, but they had never been especially _close_. Most of the boys slapping him on the back in camaraderie now had long since made their estimation of him—Parrish, the charity case. Parrish, top of the class. Parrish, Gansey’s bishop to match Lynch’s knight. 

This—the ostentatious ‘I was here’ declaration by whoever he’d fucked last night—was the first thing the other Ag boys had seen about him that was of any real interest. It was a point of convergence. They couldn’t understand where he came from or Gansey’s attachment to him, but they understood getting off. When Adam was framed against this backdrop, he became if not one of them too, then at least recognizable. When it came down to it, sex—and the things that usually led to sex—were the ideal thing to bond over; accessible and vacuous. Adam wished he had thought of it sooner, not that he knew how to properly capitalize on this sudden glare of attention like Gansey, or even Kavinsky, did. 

There were more offers of congratulations as he walked to second. This class, English, was the one he had been dreading, because it was not only the first time Adam would see Gansey since their argument last night, but it was also the first time Gansey would see _him_. Adam was just thankful he didn’t have any classes with Ronan today. Adam was already in his seat when Gansey walked through the door, looking fresh and preppy as always. Even the creases in his slacks looked like they’d just been knife-pressed by the cleaner. They probably _had_.

Gansey smiled at him. It was that half sheepish smile he usually gave Adam after they had a minor argument. Adam knew he was only smiling at him like that because he couldn’t see what Adam had done after he stormed off from Monmouth. Only when he was coming around to take the seat in the row behind Adam, did Gansey see the left side of Adam's neck. He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes riveted on the hickeys.

“Hey,” Adam said, because Gansey wouldn't stop staring.

“Hey,” Gansey said, eyes finally connecting with Adam's. “Guess you didn't go directly home last night.”

“Nope,” Adam said with a single shake of the head.

Gansey sat down and leaned forward in his chair. His voice was hushed when he started, “Adam—”

But Adam was saved from whatever demand for reassurance that he was ‘alright’ when Mrs. Rodriguez breezed back in and commenced class with a probing question about Hamlet's contradictory behavior in Act III of the play. The entire lesson Adam sensed Gansey was on the verge of leaning over to demand in hushed whisper what exactly had happened and with who and was Adam alright? But Adam didn’t turn and Gansey wouldn't lower himself to pass a note.

“Adam—” Gansey started once the bell rang, but Adam was already standing.

“Not now, Gansey,” he said under his breath as he slung his bag over his shoulder. Then he was out of the room and down the hall. Technically this wasn’t Adam avoiding Gansey, because he always booked it out of English—Adam’s third period, Bio, was in a building on the other side of campus. But today’s rush was really just a futile attempt to allay explanation.

Adam was traipsing through the grass of the quad when he heard a loud and nearly exasperated, “Fuckin’ _hell_ , K!”

Adam glanced over and saw Kavinsky, sitting on a low rising stone wall, rocking back from a shove one of his friends had just given him. 

They were both still looking at Adam and Kavinsky caught his eye and, honest to god, winked at him. Adam blinked, and, ignoring the unexpected flip in his gut, glared back. Kavinsky's smile didn't die. In fact, it went more impish, before he turned his attention back to Swan, who had bore witness to this exchange; and who’s expression Adam saw was serene with patience and a certain irony in the curve of his lips before Adam forced his eyes and attention forward.

It was not till Adam climbed the steps to Brixton House, wrenching the door open, that his mind struck on something he should have considered before. For the first time, the worry that what he and Kavinsky did in his car might not stay there passed through Adam's mind. 

Kavinsky's motivations for getting Adam on his back seemed pretty cut and dry last night. Fucking Adam had been a dig against Ronan, or a dig against Gansey to get to Ronan. But Kavinsky’s victory could only come if it was known that Kavinsky had _had_ Adam. He wondered exactly when he'd start hearing his and Kavinsky's name whispered together around the halls of Ag. It made Kavinsky’s wink seem more a portent of something awful to come than a friendly ribbing.

 

 

 

 

 

It still wasn’t out by the time classes broke for lunch. Adam had tried not to dwell on the possibility—probability—of his and Kavinsky’s...Gansey would probably have called it a ‘tryst’ becoming public—but Adam knew it had been nothing more than a release. A grapple for control. A touching of things _they_ were not supposed to touch. 

The caf was filled with boys in white shirt sleeves and blue blazers. Adam had intended to take his lunch to a disused stairwell and work on his homework. He was grabbing some napkins and getting ready to slip out a side door, when he saw Gansey making a beeline for him across the cafeteria. Adam was about to resign himself to an awkward conversation he did not want to have—certainly not in the fucking _caf_ , when casting his eyes around the room in a last ditch effort he spotted Spence and Milbank at a table opposite the direction of Gansey’s approach. Adam made a snap decision and wove his way over to them, banking on the likelihood Gansey would not start a scene in front of some of Adam’s acquaintances from science club, even if he would have if Adam were alone in the crowded cafeteria.

They were surprised when Adam asked to join, as it was his habit to eat lunch with Gansey since they had become friends, but they were good guys and Milbank shoved over. Adam sat down, but, of course, the price of putting off Gansey was enduring a light-hearted interrogation. 

“Damn, Parrish,” Milbank said. “You hook up with a sucker fish last night or what?”

“What kinda sucker fish has teeth?” Spence demanded.

There were some crass comments about him being mauled by a wild animal, which incidentally led to Spence asking if _Lynch_ was the one who did that?  

It had been a joke, but the mere mention of Ronan caused something to twitch through him. All day Adam had been too pre-occupied with the rumors that were going around about him, he hadn’t had time to think about the root cause of why he had been wandering the deserted streets of Henrietta past midnight or why he had climbed into _Kavinsky’s_ car. He had not thought of Ronan or how angry he was with him and his presumption. Because the truth was: the rent Ronan paid without Adam’s permission felt like more of a violation than anything he had done with Kavinsky. That realization coupled with the suggestion he would let Ronan mark him like that made Adam feel slightly sick. It must have shown.

“Oh!” Spence crowed. “Your face!”

“We're gonna take that as a 'no,' I think,” Milbank quipped, then he sat forward, manner going confidential, and asked, “It wasn't Gansey, was it?”

Adam guffawed and then—pushing all thoughts of Ronan aside—fixed him with raised eyebrows and an amused quirk of the lips, “What do you think?”

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Bellamy was droning on about German reparations after World War I. Adam was following the lecture—no matter how hard Bellamy tried to engage the class in a discussion, it always devolved into a lecture—with his elbow on the desk, hand splayed across the base of his skull and neck, propping his head up.

It wasn’t until half-way through class that Adam realized he'd been absent-mindedly pressing his thumb into the hickeys; setting the bruises off with strumming feeling. Adam sat up and slipped his hand under his thigh.

 

 

 

 

 

Gansey was leaning next to his locker after the final bell rang. With all his classes out of the way for the day, Adam felt more comfortable giving Gansey all his attention so he could actually put his concern to bed. 

“How are you?”

“Fine,” Adam said. This was true enough. “How are you?”

“I've been worried about you,” Gansey said.

Adam refrained from pointing out that Gansey was often worried over him even though it never did much good. 

“You know,” Gansey continued. He was frowning at some middle distance, like he was trying to catch at some explanation but it kept eluding his grasp. “I didn't think things were all that bad last night. We've done that before, but then Ronan—that was new and you stormed off. I figured you needed to cool down. I don't know...but then you come to school looking like _that_. Who even did it?” 

“Someone,” Adam said. He was actually surprised that Kavinsky hadn't use his not inconsiderable clout to broadcast the fact that it was _him_. Adam supposed it might be because he didn't have any proof, but since when did rumors need that? From what little Adam had heard—sometimes it was a pity people usually stopped talking about someone once they walked into the room—Kavinsky's name hadn't been mentioned in connection with him at all.

“Well, I'm glad you weren't mauled by rabbits,” Gansey said drily and then in a completely different tone. “....it wasn't Blue?”

Adam snorted rather unkindly and fixed him with a look that made Gansey shrug a little confused.

“Aren't you guys ...something?”

“I don't think she wants to be,” Adam said frankly. He liked Blue. He liked her a lot. She was smart and very pretty but...something between them was off. If they _were_ together, he should have thought of her before he climbed into Kavinsky's car Monday night. They weren’t, but even still she hadn't even crossed his mind and beyond that he was sure the evidence of what had happened—i.e. the mauling of his neck—was something she would demand an explanation for. An explanation Adam had no intention of giving. Knowing that what they’d been trying for wasn’t going past this point didn’t tear him up as much as he would have expected.

“ _Are_ you alright?” Gansey asked.

“I'm fine,” Adam said shutting his locker door.

“Can we be alright?”

“ _We_ can be,” Adam allowed. “But I don't want to talk to Ronan.”

“...he meant well.”

Adam shouldered his pack. “You do too, but that doesn't make it right.”

 

 

 

 

 

Since they were headed to the same place, Gansey gave Adam a ride back to Monmouth to get his bike.

When they pulled in, the e30 was already parked haphazardly in the lot. Ronan probably skipped and Adam couldn’t have cared less. 

Gansey put the Pig in park and Adam sat forward, elbows braced on his knees, fingers steepled in front of his mouth. He and Ronan fought like they breathed—that was just who Ronan was—but this was different. 

Most of their arguments were over minor things that truly didn’t matter, but this, at it’s core, was a fundamental disrespect of Adam. It was a lack of faith in Adam’s ability to take care of himself. It implied that Ronan didn’t trust Adam’s decision making process. That he didn’t think Adam knew what was right for him. Most of all it took Adam’s _choice_ to accept or reject Ronan’s offer of financial assistance from him. The way he went behind Adam’s back, proved that Ronan knew how important this was to Adam, the odds of him saying ‘no,’ and yet.....he had still done it. It wasn’t something Adam was sure he could forgive, even if Ronan was unlikely to ever apologize in the first place.

Dealing with him now with this hanging over them would be tricky. Adam didn’t want his friendship with Gansey to suffer, but it was hard to see this going another way. 

“You sure you don’t want to come up?” Gansey asked, wistful. He was probably thinking something along the same.

Adam turned to face him, a wan smile spreading across his lips. He really did want to spend the rest of the afternoon with Gansey—but not with Ronan hovering over them and not when he had homework to finish before work tonight.

“Right,” Gansey sighed, his own attempt at a smile sad. 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day, Adam could feel Ronan’s eyes on him all through Latin. There was something hard and displeased in that stare which made Adam’s skin crawl. It gave him the feeling that Ronan thought it was _Adam_ who had done something wrong between them. 

Which Adam found infinitely rich. 

Monday night Adam had stormed off before Ronan could give them the break-down of his thought process on why he’d started paying Adam’s rent—the assumption that Ronan _would_ have said anything in his defense if given the opportunity was laughable. But Adam didn’t need him to; everything he thought about Adam and his reaction had been clear in his voice and manner during their argument. 

Ronan interfering in the way he had made everything Adam was trying to do feel cheap. It reminded Adam that people like Ronan thought he could be bought—were in fact right to think so—because Adam _could_ be bought. He knew it with a horrible bone deep certainty. He knew he could be bought. The price would only be his pride. Adam had thrown such offers back in Gansey’s face too many times to just accept Ronan violating his boundaries. It didn’t matter _how_ Ronan had reasoned it out with himself, because it still crossed a line with Adam. Gansey’s offers were one thing. He hated them but at least they were honest, upfront. The hypocrisy of the sneaking Ronan had gone about to set this up, the outright lies he’d pushed other people to give— _church tax break?_ —just further illustrated his respect for Adam. Or rather his lack of. 

There was nothing to say. 

Worst of all there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. Adam’s schedule was already stretched so thin it wasn’t like he could just find another minimum wage job. That wouldn’t be enough money and there was no way he could squeeze it in with the others. No, what he needed was to get a better paying job to replace one of the minimum wage ones—preferably his work at the warehouse. That didn’t seem likely though. Adam would look, but there weren’t many options in Henrietta. 

He probably would have to go down to the credit union and talk to them about getting a loan. When he had first applied to Ag, Adam had done a little research into getting a loan to help cover costs. He’d quickly dropped the idea. Not only did Adam not want to be in debt, but getting a loan as a minor was impossible with out a co-signer. Now that he was emancipated from his parents though, things were a little different. They’d have to at least consider him, even if he ultimately got rejected. 

It was miserable, but Adam would just have to stand it. Adam couldn’t abide taking Ronan Lynch’s pity. 

His room at St. Agnes didn’t even feel like his anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

After Betz had explained their experiment, he set them loose to find their supplies and begin their assignment. Adam was making his way to the back of the room for his and Spence's beakers and the other required accoutrements from the equipment cupboard, when he came face to face with Kavinsky. 

It was always easy to forget he was in advanced chemistry too, probably because he sat in the back row and pretended not to care. But Betz posted their grades outside the lab door and while ap634728 was nearly always at the top, jk632573 was never far below him. Adam had been distracted walking back, but it was clear Kavinsky had been watching him, already returning to his seat. His eyes lingered on the marks he left, before traveling up and meeting Adam's gaze. Then Kavinsky _winked_. 

There was that stupid flip of Adam’s gut again. 

What was he supposed to do with that? What did a wink even mean to someone you’d casually hooked up with a few days ago? Did he want to go again? Was he mocking Adam? While that last option sounded most likely, there was no way Adam would be getting confirmation. What he’d like to do was go over and demand to know exactly what Kavinsky meant by it, and he would, if that wouldn't be completely obvious, seeing as he and Kavinsky never spoke in class. Hell, had they spoken ever? Adam having something to say to Joseph Kavinsky would be a sight and certainly a tidbit worth repeating, when all eyes were focused on Adam today. He didn't need the rumor mill to grind his bones to dust.  

Adam cut his eyes to the shelving at the back of the room and shouldered past.

He couldn't parse it. It was obvious Monday night was a one time thing...Truth be told Adam wasn't particularly keen on having sex in the back seat of Kavinsky’s car again. Being cramped up against the door like that definitely cut down on the pleasure factor. Kavinsky, Adam reminded himself, hadn’t been that impressed with the experience either. 

So, those winks were a private joke between them—a way of rubbing Adam’s rashness in his face surely—and not a provocation of future dalliance. Because Adam by himself was not enough to hold Kavinsky’s attention. Not without the goading of Ronan. 

But Ronan didn’t know and Ronan wasn’t here and Kavinsky’s eyes on him had been more than appreciative. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam sat on the stoop of Monmouth. Waiting out here had a two fold benefit. First the longer he stayed outside, the less time he had to spend in the vicinity of Ronan. Adam was putting a lot of effort into _not_ thinking about Lynch. He was not sure what he’d do if he really thought about the rent and that was not a good sign.

So he needed to _not_ think about it. Adam knew the feeling well. It was how he felt skirting the room when his father was in a mood and _looking_ for a reason to start a fight. Only now Adam was skirting his own thoughts. It was all in his mind and he hated it. 

Secondly, and ostensibly the real reason, he was waiting for Blue. If he was able to catch her before she went inside the warehouse, they could have the inevitable conversation that would ensue when she saw him in private. 

It was a little over forty hours since he’d climbed out of Kavinsky’s car, but the hickeys hadn’t faded much. His fingers were on one of the deeper bruises, pressing into it, when she rode up on her bike. Adam had been finding himself doing that in lulls, breaks at work or study time in class when he was thinking— _over-thinking_. He seemed to be doing it as a reminder. An affirmation Adam _could_ act. 

“Hey!” She greeted with a smile, hopping off and rolling over to the railing they typically locked their bikes to. Adam took his hand from his neck as she unwound her bike chain.

“Blue,” Adam said. Something in his tone made her look up from fitting the lock through the looped chain. Her eyes met his, briefly, narrowing in confusion, before she took the rest of him in and her eyes snapped to his neck. 

She clicked the combination lock home and stepped back, gaze not leaving the love-bites. If it was possible to hold both relief and disappointment in a person’s gaze, Blue was now. There was something jealous in the way her eyes raked over Kavinsky’s effort too. Finally she demanded, “Who is it?”

“No one you know.”

“Does she go to my school?”

Adam blinked, mind catching on _she_. Henrietta had one public high school. And then there was Ag, the all _boys_ prep school. This was Adam's opportunity to tell Blue that _he_ did not go to her school. But despite whatever reckless urge that had taken Adam in the moment, he didn't want Gansey and particularly not Ronan figuring out _who_ he’d been with. As much as Kavinsky was an asshole, and would probably ask Ronan to punch him in the face, and on school grounds no less; Adam didn't want to have to deal with Gansey’s disappointment as he tried to fix the situation and keep Ronan from getting kicked out. Again. He could see all this happening clear as day and Adam knew if he wanted to avoid it, he couldn't show his cards now. “No.”

“So she’s older?” Blue pressed. “Or from out of town?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Adam said, but Blue was still looking at him, like that wasn’t good enough, so he continued a touch defensively, “It didn’t mean anything.”

Even as he said it, Adam knew that was a lie. Monday night Adam had thought he was taking something and in a way he was. But it was Kavinsky who had really taken something from Adam—something he had given up willingly. Part of his inhibition. 

For Adam, Henrietta had always felt claustrophobic. This town made him feel stagnant. Even after his admittance to Ag and after he’d finally got a job at the trailer factory, it still wasn’t enough. The expectations of who he was and what he had to do to get out made him feel hemmed in. He needed to move. He needed out of here. Except that wasn’t in the cards at the moment. 

Adam had been spinning his wheels—biding his time, _working_ to leave—until that night he woke the line. The power that came with the risk he’d taken in April left him feeling heady but even more hungry. Adam had thought it had to do with the magic of the ley line. But...

Adam had felt alive in Kavinsky’s car too. 

He had felt awake. 

Present.

His eyes had been open.

Adam might be stuck in Henrietta for another year, but there were things he could do to feel alive. He didn’t merely have to _subsist_ here. It was an unexpected realization and welcome, despite the source. Now an entire previously unexplored realm of possibility was open to him.

“Did you return the favor?” Blue asked bitchily. “She taste good?” 

“I don't know,” Adam said, a bit startled by her ire. It wasn’t like they were actually dating. Their ‘dates,’ if they could be called that, had always been in the presence of the others. If Blue had truly been interested in _him_ specifically, and not _them_ collectively, she could have made a point to try and get Adam on his own more. Adam remembered trying a couple times early on, but they’d been thwarted by conflicting schedules. 

The fact of the matter was that though of the five of them only he and Blue worked, her shifts at the pizza kitchen and walking dogs and weeding were not as time consuming as what Adam had on his plate. She could have made more of an effort if she had really cared. He’d thought they were on the same page with this, at least—better friends, than trying for something else. Adam wasn’t going to cut himself up over something that had never existed in the first place. “We didn't kiss.”

Blue blinked, looking dubious, and asked, “Didn't you want to?”

“No,” Adam said simply. The idea of _kissing_ Kavinsky was still unappealing. Adam had thought this would pacify her, but to his surprise, she became angry. She swelled with it, somehow growing taller. 

Adam could see Blue forming and reforming some comment. Her mouth opened, but instead of saying it, she cut her eyes away on a silent inhale of breath. Adam wasn’t sure why Blue was this consternated. They had never even defined what they were. They both had barely even made an effort to make it anything at all. Finally she closed her mouth, with a bitter little downward twist, choosing to leave whatever it was unsaid. 

She pushed passed him, going upstairs. 

 

 

 

 

 

That night Adam dreamt of the dark figure again. He was following Adam through the balmy streets of Henrietta. Humid summer weather and the back of Adam’s neck was sticky with it. There were more neon lights than he knew to be on the main drag and something sinister about the shadows beyond the glow of the street lamps and how they grew. Adam got the sense that the figure wasn’t chasing him exactly. Only that Adam had somewhere he needed to be and he didn’t have time to wait for the dark figure to catch up. Somehow, despite Adam’s hurry the figure was never far behind.

Wry laughter echoed through the empty night. 

But these weren’t the streets of Henrietta. They looked like them, but instead of gridded straight roads Adam found these wound back around, leading Adam in circles. When he turned a too familiar corner, Adam came face to face with the dark figure. 

He had been waiting for Adam. 

The figure had Kavinsky’s eyes. Hungry, predator’s eyes, but Adam was not prey, he would not be—the figure was only holding out his hand for Adam. 

Adam stared for a second, before he took it and the figure spun him around like they were at a square-dance. 

They spun and spun and spun and when they stopped, Adam didn’t know how they got to the empty caf. Only that the figure had pushed him half on one of the lunch tables, before he leaned over him, slipped his tee shirt to the side, and began gnawing on Adam’s collar bone, sucking like he was trying to get at the marrow.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Adam asked.

“You taste good.”

“Better than I sound?”

“You should try it,” the dark figure said pulling back.

Adam scoffed and pushed him into one of the hard caf chairs.

“You got to take what you want,” the figure said, hooking his fingers through Adam’s belt loops and pulling him into the space between his legs. “They aren’t gonna give it to you.”

“I know,” Adam said staring down into his depthless eyes. Though his actions were suggestive, Kavinsky’s voice was dead serious; words incongruous with actions. Kavinsky’s mouth was drawn sardonic and bitter in a way Adam _knew_ but rarely let himself consciously express. 

“They’re already trying to stop you,” the figure said, rucking up Adam’s shirt. He mouthed kisses at the skin he found underneath. “They want you to do it their way. Need you to let them ‘help.’” This last bit was said with no small degree of mockery, in between sucking at one of Adam’s hip bones. Adam let his eyes shut and his head fall back, arms holding the dark figure’s head close to his abdomen. Kavinsky’s sharp teeth so close to Adam’s unprotected middle. “But this is your life. What do you want, Adam?”

It was a familiar question, but there was something strange about Kavinsky’s voice. Adam opened his eyes, pulling back from the figure. It wasn’t Kavinsky at all.

“What do you want, Adam?”

Kavinsky was gone and Adam was looking into his own face. 

“What do you want?” the double asked again, standing and grabbing Adam by either side of his head as he tried to push the doppelgänger away. 

“What do you want?”

Adam woke grappling with the sheets. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Oi! Lynch!” Kavinsky’s voice rang out clear and grating across the quad. Adam glanced up, he’d been so preoccupied with the recap of Gansey’s latest three am telephone call with Roger Mallory, he had not even realized Kavinsky was out in the quad too. Or that Ronan was walking toward them now.

Lynch ignored Kavinsky.

Adam looked over at him. Kavinsky was staring fixedly at Ronan’s back, but he must have sensed Adam’s eyes on him because Kavinsky’s skipped to his—all coyness shot, instead it had been replaced by a certain ambivalence and something underneath that could have been....disappointment or resignation, Adam couldn’t tell—and then Kavinsky’s eyes pulled away in a slow drag, as if his gaze were being drawn from Adam by some force other than Kavinsky himself. He turned back to Prokopenko and Morris, who was amused as he clapped Kavinsky on the shoulder and began talking expansively. 

Kavinsky, Adam could tell, was not paying that close attention to Morris. He was back to looking towards where Adam was. At Ronan, who had come to a stop next to him and Gansey. Lynch was saying something to Gansey, but he wasn’t listening.

Something was burning through Adam.

He wasn’t sure why Kavinsky refocusing his attention back on Ronan like it had been for the better part of a year bothered him. Other than the fact that it only seemed to confirm Adam's original assumption of Kavinsky's intentions. But then why hadn't he told everyone already? That was the only surefire way Kavinsky would have Ronan’s attention.

It wasn't like he’d made much of a secret that he liked boys. Kavinsky's pack were the gayest on campus. None of them were on the hetero side of the sliding scale that was sexuality, or at least not exclusively. Rasmussen, who ran with them and was graduating this year claimed to be something called hetero-flexible. Adam thought he was just worried what his parents might think if he came out as bi.

Adam himself wasn't out, but finding a date wasn't at the top of his priority list. The last person he’d made any sort of effort with was Blue and that...that had panned out so well. 

Adam felt the weight of someone's gaze on him. He shifted his eyes to the left to find Prokopenko watching him, expression knowing.

Prokopenko mouthed something at him. 

Adam had never had practice at lip-reading before and it went completely over his head. He made a ‘what?’ face. 

Prokopenko smirked and repeated himself slower this time. It looked like ‘your move.’ 

Adam didn’t have a move. Why would he want to make a move? Why would Prokopenko, Kavinsky’s best friend, think Adam _had_ a move? Particularly if Kavinsky’s interest in Ronan was what had led to Monday night’s activities. Adam wasn’t a stand-in for Lynch and, with Kavinsky’s refocused attention, that seemed like all Adam had been. What move could he even make going up against _that_?

But it wasn’t like Ronan was going to take Kavinsky up on his so obvious desire to fucking bone. Which was Ronan’s misfortune, because Kavinsky wasn’t a bad lay. Would it really matter if Kavinsky wanted to fuck Ronan, when he and Adam were the ones actually fucking? He could certainly sympathize with Kavinsky’s attraction to Lynch. Adam wouldn’t deny that having Kavinsky’s attention on him like it had been for the last couple days hadn’t been...compelling. He didn’t know. It wasn’t bad, not after it became evident Kavinsky wasn’t going to spread their personal business around school like dirty water with a filthy mop. 

The refrain from last night’s dream came back to him: _what do you want, Adam?_

To get out of his own fucking head. Get out of Henrietta. Possibly fuck Kavinsky again. The thought wasn’t as disturbing as he would have guessed a week ago.

“Parrish, you with us?” Gansey asked.

“No,” Adam broke away from his staring match with Prokopenko, who was smirking something wicked at him. “Sorry. What?”

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday night Adam biked home from work. He made the climb to his room and dropped his bag just inside the door. Adam sat trying to do his homework for an hour, before he realized it was no good. His mind kept wandering back to Prokopenko’s provocation, Kavinsky’s winks, which inevitably led to the question of what Kavinsky wanted with _him_ , what Adam wanted, and ultimately what Kavinsky was doing right then. He could be doing anything, but if Adam were to bet, he’d say Kavinsky was likely cruising and trying to lure Lynch out.

Adam looked at his wrist watch. Twelve thirty. Adam couldn't pretend to know anything about it, but the odds seemed decent that Kavinsky would be at his mansion out in the Riverwood Estates. It was a school night after all and Adam figured that unless the pack were holding a race or one of their famed 'substance parties'—both of which were typically reserved for weekends—they would have to be winding down by now; if only because Kavinsky made a racket at Ag selling his drugs and fakes and if he wanted to continue that enterprise, he couldn't be suspended for truancy. 

He pocketed his keys and, for the second time that week, Adam opened a door he probably should have left closed. He stepped out on to the landing and locked his door and was down the back steps of St. Agnes before he could analyze his choice too closely.

The night air was crisp, even a bit chilly for a typical late spring evening. But it was still alive with the sounds of the crickets, as Adam hopped on his bike and began peddling in the direction of Kavinsky’s house.

Don't ask Adam how he knew where Kavinsky lived. Regardless of how focused he was on his studies at Ag, Adam wasn’t completely deaf. The halls of Aglionby talked and Adam was an inadvertent listener. Creepy, maybe, but it wasn’t like he sought it out and Adam never knew what information might be useful. This was a prime example. It seemed like a major miracle that Kavinsky’s evo was parked in the driveway. There was another car parked at the street that Adam had seen in Kavinsky's formation, but it wasn't like the rest of Kavinsky’s friends didn't already know about them. So Adam wasn’t that bothered by the prospect. Kavinsky would just have to send his friend away _if_ —well, Adam wasn’t going to bank on how this would play out.

He parked his bike in the bushes near the front door, refusing to take chances with it, even late night in a neighborhood like Kavinsky’s.

He climbed the three steps up to the front door. The porch light was off—in fact, no light was on in any window, making this the darkest house on the street—Adam wondered if the light bulb above him was dead. There was nothing in the yard to suggest dereliction, but still he’d heard rumors about Kavinsky’s mom. How Kavinsky was new money. How Kavinsky was _foreign_ money. Old money would never—the Ganseys would never—ever leave a dead lightbulb over their porch, but that didn’t matter because the Kavinsky’s were connected. 

Adam asked himself what he was even doing here, his finger hovering over the doorbell. _Not that_ , Adam decided, there was something pathetic about ringing Kavinsky’s _doorbell_. Instead he tried the knob. It twisted easily in his hand and he pushed the door open on a dark entry hall. The front door left unlocked was scarier than most of the things he knew about Kavinsky. Because Adam, at the very least, knew that Kavinsky wasn't stupid. Even if his friend was careless, Kavinsky would be _prepared_ for an unexpected visitor. It sent a chill crawling up Adam’s spine that had nothing to do with the breaking and entering he was now engaged in. Still he began climbing the staircase to the second floor, assumably where the bedrooms were. 

The hallway he found at the top of the stairs was dark. No sound or indication Kavinsky was anywhere. Adam wondered if maybe they were in another part of the house, if perhaps—and this seemed more than somewhat unbelievable—that Kavinsky was asleep? Adam stood stock still trying to decide what to do, as his eyes continued to adjust to the lack of light, till he could see a faint glow seeping out from under the door at the end of the hall. 

Everything about what he was doing was so presumptive, but leaving now would be the most anti-climactic thing Adam had ever done in his life. He started towards the end of the hall. At the door, Adam took a final steadying breath before he pushed it open.

The room was cast in shadow, save for the light coming off a massive fish tank that took up most of one wall. The whole thing was rather stunning and it took Adam several seconds to drag his eyes off the exotic fish inside. Kavinsky was sitting on the floor against the wall at the far corner of the room with Prokopenko, smoking something that smelled nothing short of intoxicating.

“...Parrish,” Kavinsky greeted. Even in the bluish glow of the tank, Adam could see Kavinsky was thinking he underestimated Adam somehow. He definitely was easier to read without his shades on. Kavinsky gave a meaningful nod in Prokopenko's direction, which the other boy took as a cue to leave because he levered himself up and nodded an approving smirk at Adam on his way out of Kavinsky's bedroom. Adam heard the door shut with a quiet snick.

Kavinsky himself was standing now, making his way to Adam like he was a forest creature who might startle. But Adam didn't back down. He stood his ground, even when Kavinsky was in his space—too close, taking everything Adam offered up—and Adam, _Adam_ couldn’t believe he had brought them to this point again. But Kavinsky wasn’t smirking now. He reached up and cupped the back of Adam’s neck, his thumb brushing over the myriad of hickeys.

Adam shivered at the gilt of feeling.

No one had ever touched him like this before. His father might have grabbed him by his ear or the back of his head. His mother was so distant it marked a special occasion if she gave him a _hug_ , less so if she grabbed his upper arm sharply and tugged in a bony fingered pinch for him to attend to something. With Gansey or Ronan, he might bump fists and Blue would barely hold his hand; but that was it.

Kavinsky's touch was confident, firm, but it didn't hurt. 

That was what brought Adam back. He could act, take chances, fuck who he wanted, and there was magic in that, but Kavinsky’s hands on him....he hadn't been sure till right then, but now Adam knew that was it. That was what made him bike half-way across town on a chance.

“What do you want?” Kavinsky asked.

“I think you know,” Adam said. 

“Yeah,” Kavinsky said. He still hadn't stopped looking at Adam like that: cataloging and evaluating— _reevaluating_. As if this situation were unprecedented and he didn’t exactly know how he wanted to move forward. His thumb still moving back and forth over Adam's sensitive skin. “I think I do. But I want to hear you say it.”

Adam glanced passed the side of Kavinsky's head. For some reason, he hadn't thought he would need to say it. He hadn't thought they would _talk_ at all. Of course, Kavinsky wasn’t going to give it to him easy. Adam flicked his eyes to Kavinsky's, hard and defiant, ready to find some sadistic humor he’d expected there, but Kavinsky was just looking at him, waiting, taking the measure of Adam Parrish.

All the bluster went out of him. “I want you to fuck me.”

“Is that all?”

“I liked this,” Adam said, tilting his head to the side and feeling the heat rise in his cheeks. Baring his neck like that to Kavinsky— _again_ —made something flip and twist with arousal in the depths of him. So yeah he really liked that.

Kavinsky's lips quirked up and he carefully drew his thumb nail lightly over the bruised skin, but he didn’t say anything.

“And what do you want?” Adam asked, curious despite himself and unwilling to be the only one putting his desire on the table. He would have thought for sure his novelty had worn off. Honestly, Adam had half expected Kavinsky to turn him down. But his thumb had gone back to stroking. Kavinsky wanted him two nights ago as some sort of dig against Ronan, or so Adam assumed. Any continuation of that...was a lot of effort for something that hadn't paid off. Adam never gave Kavinsky a chance to flout his debauchery, but neither had Kavinsky forced an opportunity to do so either.

But there was something different about Kavinsky tonight. 

Maybe he took something—whatever they were smoking was probably heavier shit than regular vaping—or he could have just been tired, because while there was an interest in the quirk of his lips, that bitter tinge at the edge of his eyes, Kavinsky was blanker than Adam had ever seen him, even at a distance. The Kavinsky in front of him was stripped back. Clearly, he hadn’t expected to see anyone else tonight save Prokopenko. It was as if Kavinsky had already shrugged off his public persona and, like a great coat, he couldn’t be bothered to put it back on—not at this point, not when Adam had walked in on him without it. His doucheiness had somehow been turned down and, with the unexpected reappearance of Adam—it was evident, despite all suggestion to the otherwise, he had never honestly expected Adam to come back for a repeat, Kavinsky’s observation and analysis—the scientist in him—was turned up, so much that Adam felt under a microscope.

“I wouldn't say ‘no’ to fucking you,” Kavinsky said, which didn't sound as enthusiastic as one would imagine such a statement to yield. Before Adam could take it as an insult, Kavinsky continued, “What I _want_ is to hear you again.”

_You sound good, Parrish._

Then Kavinsky pressed his thumb into a particularly deep bruise, just like Adam had been unconsciously doing for the past two days. 

Adam couldn't help it. A little sigh escaped him.

Kavinsky, in turn, bit his lower lip, as if Adam making that noise really did something for him, as his other hand found its way under Adam’s tee shirt.

 

 

 

 

 

It was better the second time. Adam’s not crammed up against a car door. Not being distracted by the crick in the neck he knew he’d get tomorrow because of it either. Kavinsky’s bed gave them room to spread out and it was more comfortable besides. 

It's also worse. They were naked this time. 

Even with the room full of shadows, they could still see each other's scars. The thing was Kavinsky had more of them than Adam, though they were partially hidden among his tattoos. Robert Parrish like to use his fists. He’d have half a case of beer, see Adam or Patricia, and something in him would snap. He’d start a fight over nothing, some trumped up excuse or utter bullshit, any reason to get violent, and Adam would have to cover up bruises. Not much actual scarring for all the shit his father had put them through, though he had _some_ —a fraction of the real damage. More from a shove into an inconvenient hard edge or the trailer’s cabinets. But it’d clearly been different for Kavinsky. 

The realization felt like when something got stuck in the take wheel on a cassette player and it would eat the tape. A sudden wine of the ribbon backing up, an ominous click, and then silence. It was disconnected knowledge, because there were so many rumors about Kavinsky. The easily confirmable: that he was first generation American from Bulgarian immigrants. That he was from Jersey—evident enough from his accent. Adam hadn’t been up that way but he had been around the lunch room during the _Jersey Shore_ fad. There was the speculation that his father was some sort of heavy player in the Atlantic City mob scene—undoubtable, given his ‘drug connection.’ Then, aside from the fact that he could get you literally any kind of drug you wanted—quantity, supposedly, restricted only by what you could pay—the biggest rumor, that hung around him like a smokey haze and nearly over-shadowed all of his Henrietta shenanigans, was that his father had tried to kill him.

This was probably true. Adam saw parental cruelty wrought in those scars. Not all of them, but enough. There was something intimate about them. Not to mention, most were too old to be from any of his crazy fuckboy antics around town.

Maybe Adam was just projecting, but there had been a studied carelessness to Kavinsky’s movements as he disrobed that stutter-stopped when he glanced up and saw the permanent damage that had been done to Adam over the years too. 

His eyes had flicked to Adam’s and held. There was no sound but their breathing and the quiet burble of Kavinsky’s thousand dollar fish tank with its ridiculously ostentatious salt-water fish that Adam with his one semester of marine biology didn’t find even vaguely familiar. Kavinsky blinked and then they were reaching for each other at the same time. 

Kavinsky’s hands on him, pushing, guiding him to the bed were grounding. Adam let himself sink into the absurdly soft sheets and felt Kavinsky’s palms running up his calves. He pushed Adam’s legs apart, settling between them, and let his hands continue up the sides of Adam’s abdomen and over his ribs. 

Adam’s own hands grabbed at Kavinsky, whatever he could reach; shoulders, arms, the back of his neck, finally his head, fingers weaving through his hair, as Kavinsky went to work on mouthing Adam’s collarbone. He didn’t spend as long sucking as he had Monday. 

Too soon, Kavinsky pulled off him and crawled over Adam partially to root around in his bedside table.

Adam let his eyes follow the curve of Kavinsky’s back, the knobs of his spine. He could see the outline of his ribs and the way his hair was falling in his face as he bent over. Then Kavinsky was back, climbing over him, and settling between his legs. Adam felt exposed—he _was_ exposed—and a cap snapped open, followed by the wet sound of something being squeezed out, only magnified the feeling. Adam closed his eyes.

Kavinsky shoved up his legs, bending them to give himself more room, before he pushed one finger in. Adam squirmed with the slippery feeling of it, but it wasn’t much. Kavinsky pushed steadily deeper and then drew back. He pressed down slightly, running his finger around the sides, stretching him out. Adam tried to stay relaxed as he did it again and again. There was a heavy yet buoyant anticipation in the upper part of Adam’s chest that made it hard to breathe deeply. Kavinsky sat back.

There was the sound of more lube and then two fingers thrust into him while the other hand hooked around the top of his calf. This was more what he’d been expecting, better; a lot, but manageable. 

Then Kavinsky pressed them out.

“Ka—” Adam gasped.

“Yeah?” Kavinsky asked, mouthing at the skin on the inside of Adam’s thigh, then nipping at the spot where he’d been playing with the hem of his shorts Monday. “C’mon, babe, let me hear you.”

Adam let out the shakiest of breaths.

Kavinsky’s fingers were slick and sliding into him as deep as they could reach. Adam wasn’t sure why Kavinsky was doing this at all, since he hadn’t been concerned with fingering him Monday—if he had taken something, if this was to do with Adam’s request, or if Kavinsky just wanted a chance to get his mouth on more interesting places. Adam was going to have marks going all up the inside of his thigh tomorrow. Regardless it was a torture that set his insides roiling. The sensations Kavinsky was setting off were bliss. It wasn’t even like he was taking his time opening Adam up. He was just being thorough and—

Three fingers.

Adam was all but shaking. The anticipation had given way to genuine arousal. He was getting _close_ from this—just Kavinsky’s fingers—which seemed to suggest less to Kavinsky’s skill and more to how easy Adam, evidently, was.

Then Kavinsky’s fingers brushed something as he pushed in and Adam’s eyes nearly rolled back in his head. Kavinsky must have noticed, because he repeated the movement and the feeling struck Adam again. 

Grey fissions of light. His lungs expanded huge and exhaled in a gust. A _keen_ broke from his lips. It was almost cruel how Kavinsky had managed to find his prostate. 

“That’s it, babe,” Kavinsky said, hitting the spot again. Adam’s body jerked beneath him. He could bring Adam off from just his fingers if he wanted.

Adam was so achingly present. 

Then Kavinsky’s fingers were gone and Adam made a pathetic whining noise. 

“Do you want—?” Kavinsky’s voice brought Adam back to earth with the question of a condom. He must have pulled it out when he’d grabbed the lube—which was for some reason deceptively disguised as a sunscreen bottle. 

“Oh,” Adam breathed out, a bit dumbstruck at his own foolishness. He’s had sex ed. He knows how STIs work and knows that if Kavinsky had something, he’s given it to Adam already; unprotected anal sex being the riskiest of sex acts—the tissue was so thin, easy to rip, and most susceptible to infection. He’d been so dumb Monday night. 

“It was stupid of me,” Kavinsky said inexplicably, flicking the foil packet he was holding onto Adam’s chest. “But you didn’t seem to mind last time.”

“What?” Adam scoffed, managing derisive despite how distractingly empty he felt without Kavinsky’s fingers in him. His hard-on wasn’t even flagging with all this fucking _conversation_. “You haven’t fucked anyone since?”

“No,” Kavinsky admitted with a slight frown. Then he looked up, catching Adam’s eyes, and it was too intimate, “Have you?”

“No,” Adam answered horsely and for whatever reason he couldn’t break that eye contact. Adam knocked the condom off his chest. It skipped across the bed and slipped onto the floor—at this point, Adam didn’t really care if Kavinsky didn’t; it wasn’t like _he_ was the one who _might_ get shit on his cock. Kavinsky grabbed up the lube and slicked up his dick, then Adam’s, getting a bit on the rim before dropping the bottle and, without further preamble, slid in. 

Adam choked out a gasp. 

He had needed this. It was reckless and _good_ and everything Adam had hoped for on his bike ride over. Adam almost hated himself for wanting it this bad—for needing it like this—for even coming back to Kavinsky. For everything. But he couldn’t. 

It was so perfect.

Then Kavinsky started to move and Adam—opened his eyes. The dark figure from his dreams was looming over him. Kavinsky was staring down at him, mouth parted and eyes hungry, starving, ravenous—a reflection of Adam’s own insatiable appetite. This was not a dream.

Adam was so violently present in this moment. He was alive.

It was so much better now that Adam _knew_ he wanted this. So much better now that he was taking it from Kavinsky with both hands. 

 

 

 

 

 

Later once Kavinsky was thrusting into him at a relative rhythm, he _kissed_ Adam. Adam had not expected it, panting, meeting Kavinsky's thrusts, mouth sucking at air. Until he was sucking on Kavinsky’s tongue and he couldn't breathe at all. Kavinsky wasn’t necessarily a bad kisser, but it was not the best moment for it and Adam was taken off guard. Kissing had seemed too personal Monday. Not much had changed since. 

Adam broke the kiss and turned his face away, inadvertently exposing the unmarred side of his neck to Kavinsky; the taste of root-beer and anise still on his tongue. Kavinsky didn’t acknowledge this rebuff. Instead, he put his lips to the tan, unblemished skin in front of him and bit down, making an absolute mess of Adam, as he fucked him steady and deep until Kavinsky got him to _moan_.

 

 

 

 

 

“You can stay here if you want,” Kavinsky said once they cleaned up. 

Adam’s face must have expressed that he did not, in fact, want.

Kavinsky held up his hands, “If you want to bike home now, your more of a masochist then I pegged you for.”

Adam thought about the twenty minute ride it took him to get over here and how slick his ass still felt. And yeah, Adam really didn't want to bike home. 

Except he didn't particularly want to sleep next to Kavinsky either. Especially not when Kavinsky didn't even appear to be going to sleep himself. He had jumped back on the bed, but was only slumped against the pillows, doing something on his phone.

There were a lot of things Kavinsky could do to Adam while he slept.

Only, Adam had garnered from his brief but intimate acquaintance with Kavinsky, that he wasn’t all that good at hiding his intentions—Adam had never thought of himself as overly perspicacious, but all he was getting off Kavinsky was a general ambivalence. It seemed unlikely he was planning something nasty. Or so Adam hoped. He was too drowsy to even think about getting dressed, let alone biking back to St. Agnes.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam woke up alone, though the bathroom door was ajar and the shower was running. He didn’t see a clock on the bedside table, but if he were to bet, his alarm back at St. Agnes had probably been going off for the last twenty minutes. It couldn’t be much later than when he usually woke. Adam’s body had been conditioned over years to be up—for work or school—early. 

Adam didn't know what the etiquette was for a second one night stand. But with a glance at his wrist watch, he decided it didn’t matter. They had school in less than an hour. Adam was going to have to rush if he wanted to get his books, a fresh change of clothes, and make it to Ag on time,

With three weeks and a day till summer break, half the school had already nearly lost focus completely, while the other more academic minded set were taking frantic notes and looking like over-caffeinated zombies. 

 

 

 

 

 

At school, Adam went to all his classes, he dutifully took notes, endured Gansey’s worried glances, but of the whole day the only thing he truly remembered was when Kavinsky purposefully bumped into him during passing time. He slipped something into the breast pocket of his Ag jacket. Kavinsky winked at him _again_ as he continued on his way. Adam would almost think Kavinsky had a facial twitch that looked like a wink if he didn't stop doing it when they were alone together.

When he was safely seated in history, Adam pulled out the folded paper. The sheet only held the letter ‘K’ with a phone number that had too many digits and an area code he'd never heard of. Kavinsky’s numbers were tall, taller than would fit on college rule and they bled slightly across the thin blue lines. But his writing was clean and sharp.

Why did he give Adam his number? Did Kavinsky think this was going to become a _thing_?

Did _Adam_ want it to become a thing?

 

 

 

 

 

“Why'd you give me this number?” Adam asked once the call connected. 

“In case you wanted to get in touch with me,” Kavinsky said after a beat. 

“Why would I want to get in touch with you?”

“You might want to go for a drive again,” Kavinsky said, his voice was all suggestion. He definitely sounded more like his usual self. 

“You seriously gave me your number for booty calls?”

“ _I know when that Hotline Bling; that can only mean one thing_ ,” Kavinsky crooned into the receiver. “Is this your number?”

“I don't have a cell phone,” Adam said waspishly.

“Yeah,” Kavinsky said drawing out the word. “I meant like the land-line at the church?”

Adam wasn’t sure what to make of Kavinsky knowing where he lived. “...I'm at work.”

“Where's that?”

Adam glanced around the break room. His eyes caught on the dented, gnarled wood table that was so old portions of the finish had worn off, the metal folding chairs circled around it, the vending machine from the ‘70s. His eyes hit the wall and followed the steel girders holding up the ceiling, trying to decide if he _wanted_ to tell Kavinsky anything. “You know the trailer factory?”

“Sure,” Kavinsky said inexplicably. “Are you on lunch?”

Adam sighed. Damn if Kavinsky wasn't nosy. 

 

 

 

 

 

After the conversation Adam had on his lunch, it shouldn’t have surprised him to find a Mitsubishi Lancer parked next to the factory’s bike rack. He only paused for a second to double check the ‘THEIF’ vanity plate—as if there was another white evo driving around Henrietta—before walking over and unlocking his bike, doing his best to ignore the gleaming monstrosity. 

Of course, Kavinsky lowered the window and asked, “Want to go for a drive?”

Adam looked up as he looped the bike chain around his arm, before hooking it over the handle bars. He studied Kavinsky, thinking he was assuming an awful lot and about all the homework he had to do. “I'm not having sex in your car again.”

Kavinsky shrugged. “Good thing I'm not offering then.”

_Why else would he be here?_

“You want to go for a drive?” Kavinsky asked again. 

“Where to?”

“Back to mine.”

Adam scoffed and shook his head. “I'm tired and I got my bike.” 

What Adam was really tired of was having to walk after leaving his bike somewhere because of some stupid impulsive decision. 

“I think it could fit,” Kavinsky said, looking at his bike. “If I flipped the back down.”

Adam eyed his evo. The back seats didn't look like they were made to flip down.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam admired how well Kavinsky knew his car. He’d flipped down the seats and together, with only the slightest of finagling, they had been able to make the bike fit. _Somehow._ The physics of it still didn’t make any sense to Adam, but he wouldn’t have to walk to work tomorrow, so he wasn’t complaining. And even though there wasn’t a whole lot of ground to cover between the factory and Kavinsky’s house, he hadn’t been joking when he’d suggested a drive. Kavinsky took them on a circumspect route out beyond the town limits onto the windy roads that surrounded Henrietta, essentially taking them in a big semi-circle instead of the straight shot across town he could have done.

The car hummed happily as Kavinsky took it through its paces, [while some rather aggressive—Korean?—rap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ktszP05TUY) emanated from the speakers. Adam didn’t think he’d even been in a car that was quite this _receptive_ to its driver and even though the gearing was short, Kavinsky handled her well.

The other part of the mitsu’s eager responsiveness was how it gripped the road as they went through the curves. The evo didn’t lean. It didn’t lean at all and Adam knew Kavinsky was pleased when he first took them through a bend and Adam let out a surprised breath. Ronan’s dad’s BMW didn’t have much body roll, but it was nothing compared to Kavinsky’s evo. Monday night he’d had been too preoccupied with the prospect of what they might do to really show off. But now where they were going was a sure thing and Kavinsky was indulging himself. Even though Adam was tired, his professional interest was more than piqued. He wondered the odds of his convincing Kavinsky to let him take his car for a spin sometime.

Adam was almost sorry when they pulled into the driveway and Kavinsky killed the engine. He popped the trunk and Adam hoisted his bike out of the car. Aside from the crickets, they were silent as Kavinsky unlocked his front door under the dark porch light bulb. Adam threw down the kickstand and left it in the foyer, before following Kavinsky up to his room. 

“Let's not drag this out,” Adam said, closing the door. 

Kavinsky dropped his hat and shades on the top of the dresser, before looking over at him, appraising, _hungry_ , and asked, “Sure you aren't too tired to get it up?”

“Ha,” Adam said. “Would I be here otherwise?”

Kavinsky scoffed and pushed Adam back against the door. His mouth was on Adam's skin and his fingers made quick work of Adam's fly. He reached into Adams boxers, starting to work up a serious interest. It was only when Adam was hard, that Kavinsky broke away and sunk to his knees. He'd already got Adam's cock between his lips before Adam even fully registered that was his intention the whole time and by that moment, Adam's head had snapped back with a clunk against the hollow wood of the pre-fab door. 

Honestly, Kavinsky's mouth around him like this was all Adam wanted from now till he had a bus ticket out of Henrietta.

He felt so good. His teeth weren’t a problem and it was clear from the way the suction wasn’t too much that Kavinsky had done this before.

Adam didn't know what he’d been expecting but Kavinsky straight up blowing him against his bedroom door, jerking himself off while doing it, was not it. 

Adam let his fingers tangle in Kavinsky's hair. His head was at just the right height for it, hair already messy and, actually quite greasy from being tucked under the cap for some indeterminate time.

How did Kavinsky’s mouth feel so good? So wet? Adam’s breath was coming in labored pants.

Somewhere in the last thirty seconds he locked eyes with Kavinsky and Adam tugged on his hair when he felt close, but instead of pulling off and jerking him the rest of the way, like Adam had expected, Kavinsky started humming, swallowed him _deeper_ , and Adam saw white as he came down Kavinsky's throat.

Adam didn't loosen his grasp on Kavinsky's hair as he rode out his orgasm. Not even when Kavinsky let Adam's softening cock slip from his lips, drool shining on his chin, and began beating off in earnest. Adam kept his fingers snarled in Kavinsky’s hair, tight against his scalp and through his post-coital haze Adam wondered....

He jerked on the hair twisted in his grasp and Kavinsky's breath caught. He came immediately.

Adam let his fingers loosen as Kavinsky breathed deep and ragged; slumped, looking for all the world like a puppet with his strings cut. Adam pushed the hair back off Kavinsky’s forehead, tilting his head back too. That seemed to have worked a better reaction than Adam would have hoped, still he had to ask, “I’m guessing that was good for you?”

“You know it, beautiful,” Kavinsky said, too earnest for the wry Adam thought he was going for.

Staring down at Kavinsky, who was still on his knees, cock still out, shamelessly grinning up, completely pleased with himself and the situation, Adam had a wonderfully horrible sense of foreboding. 

This was gonna become a habit. 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. act ii: the earth is only sand

 

 

 

 

 

act ii: the earth is only sand

 

 

 

 

 

Adam had more or less a pretty set schedule. He had to. There was no other way to balance three jobs and a full course load at Ag along with the required extracurriculars. So while he and Kavinsky didn’t meet up every night, it was not as erratic as Adam imagined such arrangements of casual sex tended to be. In fact, if it weren’t for the randomness of Joey K’s drug deals, Kavinsky having all three of Adam’s work numbers programed into his phone would have been superfluous. But he did, along with St. Agnes to boot.

The meeting place was always Kavinsky’s house, typically after one of Adam’s evening shifts. Once they actually fucked, it would be well passed midnight and Adam would be exhausted. Too exhausted to want to bike home, which meant he was staying over at Kavinsky’s house more than he would have liked. 

Barring summers with his grandmother, Adam could count on one hand the number of times he'd slept somewhere that wasn't the Parrish trailer. Sleeping in places that didn't feel safe wasn't really ever something a person became used to. Adam himself wouldn't say he was, even if he'd essentially grown up with that as the norm. And sleeping in the same room as someone else, someone you didn’t know, added another layer to that feeling entirely. 

And this was _Kavinsky_. Joesph Kavinsky, who slept with an impressive looking gun in his bedside table, which Adam had caught sight of one night when he’d gone looking for lube. Kavinsky, who’s father might piss off the wrong people who then might decide to take it out on his family. Joey K, the drug dealer who the DEA could have traced the thriving Henrietta drug trade to its heart at the Kavinsky residence—not to mention as a means of implicating their relations in Jersey—and raid the place in the middle of the night. There was no reason Adam should feel safe at Kavinsky’s house, let alone in his bed. And yet…. 

It wasn't so bad.

Maybe it was just because he was perpetually exhausted, but Adam never lost sleep over being involved with Kavinsky in the way they were. The only thing that troubled Adam about it at all, really, was the rent he was paying for the room at St. Agnes while he wasn’t even sleeping in it. Or rather the rent _Ronan_ was paying for the room at St. Agnes, which might have been what kept Adam from offering it up as a place to meet.

There were a number of reasons why Adam hadn’t. Obviously, Adam’s laundry situation was not ideal and really having sex on a twin mattress would not be as good as Kavinsky’s queen, not that Adam thought Kavinsky would actually _mind_. The fact that meeting at the church would mean a lot less running around for Adam should have carried more weight then most of the points he had against it, particularly for someone who worked three different jobs on top of school and biked everywhere he needed to go. Adam should have been looking for ways to optimize his free time and, maybe, make Kavinsky do more of the work. Adam felt he had more of a right to be dead-tired than Kavinsky ever did, even if Kavinsky _looked_ like he never slept. Joey K after-all had a car and what he did for money was considerably less taxing.

Still, if he was staying over at Kavinsky’s, then Adam was not _in_ his room. If he wasn’t in his room at St. Agnes, he was less likely to be annoyed at Ronan. Adam didn’t have to face how _not_ his it felt now. Adam didn’t want to dedicate anymore mental energy to Lynch, if he did he might get angry and Adam really couldn’t afford that.

Kavinsky’s invitation to sleep over from that second night had apparently been a standing one, because he never tried to kick Adam out after they were together and he certainly never offered to give Adam a ride back to the church—not that Adam even thought to ask. 

Despite the sleeping over and the extra biking around, it was an alright set up.

The sex was good and Kavinsky wasn't high maintenance. He had his own friends, could keep his mouth shut, and demanded virtually nothing of Adam beyond the obvious. It was exactly everything Adam needed out of such an arrangement. Or, at least, enough that he was willing to consistently inconvenience himself for it to continue. He’d hardly even considered trying to find someone else to do this with. Adam had, but only briefly because even after their rocky start, even if Kavinsky was completely inappropriate, even if Gansey would have a fit if he ever found out, Adam saw no reason to solicit casual sex from someone else only to find out they were expecting something more from him than Adam was willing or able to give. 

At least with Kavinsky, they knew where they stood with each other.

 

 

 

 

 

“So you're dating a vampire?” Spence asked, tinkering with the magnetic liquid that was the subject of this afternoon’s science club meeting. He wasn’t even pretending to watch what he was doing with ferrofluid, unabashedly eyeing both the new and fading marks on Adam's neck.

“I'm not dating anybody.”

“Then your...secret lover is a vampire?”

“Definitely not lovers.”

“Your friend with benefits,” Milbank tried.

“Not even friends.”

“Damn,” Milbank’s eyebrows climbed up.

“Fuckbuddy,” Spence said with finality.

Adam opened his mouth but realized he couldn’t deny the classification. If he and Kavinsky were anything, that was it.

“Ah-ha!” Spence said with triumph when Adam turned away with a half-shrug.

“Fuckbuddy. Girlfriend. Does it even matter if she's hot?” Milbank asked, bumping Adam's shoulder in camaraderie.

“Or if _he's_ hot,” Spence pointed out. “Just because Parrish said it wasn't Gansey or Lynch doesn't mean it couldn't be one of our other esteemed classmates. I know more than a few guys who wouldn't turn down a night with you.”

This last sentence made little sense to Adam.

“You?” Milbank demanded, turning a raised eyebrow on him.

Spence gave a vicious snort, then said rather archly, “Tell that to your sister.”

“Pffff. As if,” Milbank snorted, before a considering look came over him. “ _Is_ it someone we know?”

Adam tilted his head but said nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

“Are you ever going to sit with us during lunch again?” Gansey asked, grabbing the tongs to the fresh tossed Caesar salad. 

It was a fair question. Since that first day, Adam had been taking lunch with Milbank and Spence. He'd been planning on doing that again today when Gansey had sidled up to him at the salad bar.

He and Gansey may have made up, but Adam didn’t want to have to sit across from Ronan and pretend everything was honky-dory. He had nothing to say to Ronan and Ronan hadn’t stopped looking at him like _that_. Enduring his ridiculous judgement through Latin was trying enough. Adam wasn’t interested in voluntarily subjecting himself to it over lunch as well. It wasn’t like he could ask Ronan to leave either, because Ronan had come first—and because Adam was pretty sure that Gansey secretly agreed with Ronan’s course of action.  

“I've thought about it,” Adam admitted, adding a couple cherry tomatoes to his pile of spring greens. “But I get enough of Ronan glaring at me in Latin.”

The small crease that was seeming to take up a permanent residence between Gansey’s brows deepened.

“Don't tell me you haven't noticed,” Adam continued darkly. Frankly, he didn't think it was possible for Gansey to have missed Ronan’s louring stare. It was ridiculous. How did he actually think Adam would react when he opened his big mouth Monday night? Ronan had _known_ Adam wouldn't be _grateful_ —he'd anticipated it or else why’d he go so far to keep it a secret in the first place? He had no right to look at Adam like he was the one who had stepped in shit and then trailed it through his house while sulking around. That was Ronan and Adam’s house only had one window, so that stink wasn’t gonna be aired out anytime soon.

“I'll speak with him about it,” Gansey said with resolve—as if that action alone would ameliorate things between Adam and Ronan. 

“Why’s he even doing that? He does realize he’s the one who’s in the wrong here? That _he_ violated _my_ boundaries, right?”

“I think he might just be worried he pushed you to do something you regret...” Gansey said, with a subtle chin tilt towards Adam's neck. 

Adam resisted the urge to scoff and waited for Gansey to meet his eyes again. Adam rarely regretted his actions. If he did, it was usually something he had done or said when he was angry. So maybe there could have been some validity to Ronan’s assumption—but, though he’d been spitting mad when he had got into the evo, Adam had yet to regret starting this thing with Kavinsky. It would seem Gansey needed to see the resolve there too.

“You can’t deny _that_ is out of character, probably reckless. He’s worried,” Gansey said with an unsympathetic shrug after taking in Adam’s expression. “Can’t say he’s the only one.”

“You don’t glare at me when you’re concerned.”

He and Gansey shared a look. 

“Even if Ronan were to stop, like, radiating disapproval—as if he has any right,” Adam stopped himself. “It's not just that and you know it. I have nothing to say to him. He's not going to apologize. The fact that he did this at all...” Adam trailed off. “I am not sure we can even get back to normal. But it definitely won’t happen until I can figure out a way to cover the rest of my rent on my own...”

“What if I were able to get him to apologize?”

“What if you could get him to mean it? ‘What if,’ Gansey?” Adam demanded. “Couching it as 'I'm sorry you feel that way' is different from 'I am sorry to have done that in the first place.' So what do you think you could get him to apologize for?”

Ronan wouldn’t give Adam an apology just to placate him. That was one thing Adam could count on. Ronan wasn’t going to apologize.

“He went behind your back. Didn't give you a chance to say ‘no’ or find a different way,” Gansey said, meeting Adam’s eyes; seeking his approval.

“Yeah, and you know what else he did? He lied, Gansey,” Adam said turning to face him. “He lied. You see that, right?”

“I know.” Gansey’s mouth was twisted slightly down at the corner—it was as much displeasure as Adam was going to get him to show in public. 

“He took away _my_ fucking choice to accept his help just because he assumed _he_ wasn't going to _like_ the answer.”

There was a moment of silence before Gansey spoke again. His voice so low and earnest it was very nearly drowned out by all the other sounds of the busy caf, when he said, “You deserved a chance to say ‘no,’ Adam.”

Something about _Gansey_ grasping the crux of Ronan’s violation made Adam feel like he should thank him. There was a time in their friendship when Gansey would have sided with Ronan’s actions completely. Adam appreciated the progress. 

 

 

 

 

 

The results of Gansey’s talk with Ronan were seen the following night when the five of them convened at Monmouth. Gansey had ordered a new EMF reader, which UPS had delivered that afternoon. They were meeting under the pretext of Gansey teaching each of them how to use it properly, even though the machine wasn’t that complicated. Gansey had also ordered a couple pizzas, which came by the time the five of them were done with the new toy, and they sprawled out on the portion of the loft floor that wasn’t covered in cardboard town. 

In all honesty, it could have been worse. Whatever Gansey had said to Ronan had stopped the disapproving glares, but he was still watching Adam. He’d catch Ronan looking at him with an expression that was less hurt and more considering. 

They hadn’t gotten into another fight. No one had said anything incendiary at all. Even still, it was a blessing that Noah had been in rare form because the rest of them had been walking on eggshells.

Nearly the entire night Adam wondered why he was even there. 

It was miserable to spend a whole evening with the people he considered his closest friends, while wanting nothing more than to leave. The fact that the meeting wasn’t merely a social call really didn’t change things. Ronan had said little, Blue had been cold, Gansey had tried, and Adam had to bite his tongue over and over. 

Even with him and Gansey having made up from their minor squabble about the rent, on personal matters they were more or less fine. There was still a cloud hanging over every one of their interactions regarding the hunt for the Welsh king. 

Gansey had never really gotten over what Adam had done back in April. In the theft of the Camaro and the trade with Cabeswater, Adam had somehow crossed an invisible line that only Gansey could see. Gansey was the only one who knew it was there, because he had been the one to lay it down to begin with. Adam felt justified in his objection at having done anything wrong. The fact was someone had been going to wake the line that night; it could have been them or it could have been Whelk or it could have been Neeve. Adam thought this was the best play of a bad hand. Hell, he thought they could even make it a good hand, since Cabeswater seemed open to helping them on the Glendower search.

Gansey didn’t see it that way though. Adam couldn’t figure out if Gansey didn’t _trust_ Adam or if he just didn’t like what he had done. 

Either way, Gansey didn’t understand that sometimes you had to get your hands dirty. That sometimes you didn’t like what needed to be done in order to do it so that you could keep the progress you made. That just because Gansey didn’t _like_ what Adam had chosen to do, didn’t mean it shouldn’t have been done. 

Adam wanted to tell Gansey all of this plainly, but he hadn’t yet. Now that they had a sort of peace again, Adam didn’t want to go and dash it on the rocks, even if there were lines of tension in the corners of Gansey’s eyes half the time he looked at Adam.

It was hard not to say what he was really thinking though: that it was Gansey who had asked for their help on this. Gansey who had invited them on this search. Gansey who had asked _him_. Gansey who had known Adam’s character and temperament. So it was on Gansey if he didn’t want them to bring their own methods on board. If Gansey didn’t want them to bring their own ways of looking to the search—if he had just wanted minions—than he had picked the wrong people. Adam would not—could not—check with Gansey over every little decision. He bristled at the implication that he _should_. 

_And_ Adam wanted to tell Ronan that he didn’t need his sneaking _help_. That he had gotten in Ag without him. That he had woken the ley line without him. That he didn’t need him. That he didn’t _want_ his help.

The evening should have been fun. Adam knew it should have been fun. But it had merely been taxing, dragged out and taken forever. So when he peddled from Monmouth, it was with a desire to move fast and get _away_. It was not until the lot size of the houses he was passing grew and the hedges and lawns became finely trimmed, that Adam realized he’d been unconsciously riding to Kavinsky’s.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam hadn’t really been thinking when he’d left Monmouth, otherwise he might have stopped by St Agnes to call ahead and grab a change of clothes. But Adam had been exhausted and annoyed and he just wanted to find Kavinsky and _forget_ about it all for a while.

Except when he tried the knob of the mansion, Adam realized the front door was locked. 

To be fair, it was late by anyone's standards—even Kavinsky's. None of his friends cars were on the street. As usual, Adam didn’t see any lights on, but the evo was in the driveway. So he was here, and if Adam had learned anything about Kavinsky it was he had as much trouble with sleep as Gansey—more even. There was no way he’d be asleep now, but neither his room or the basement were within earshot if Adam knocked. And with no phone and no other way to get a hold of him...

Short of finding a ladder and knocking on his windows, Adam’s only option was to ring the bell or turn around and bike home. 

Adam rang the bell.

There was something out of order about it. This whole night was a fucked up inversion of the past week. Like he should have had to ring the first night he’d been to Kavinsky’s house instead of just letting himself in, as opposed to now when he and K had been more or less hooking up on the regular and yet here Adam was forced to ring the bell. It was dumb and Adam felt ridiculous and desperate.

Adam just hoped that Kavinsky’s mom wouldn’t open the door. Though he’d seen her around town and heard enough rumors about her to be curious, he didn’t want to have to deal with the awkwardness of meeting her for the first time in the middle of the night with absolutely no _innocent_ reason to be on her doorstep. 

Adam rang the bell again, and waited another nearly thirty seconds before he heard the deadbolt being thrown. The door swung open and across the threshold stood thankfully only Kavinsky; looking mussed and oddly small in only a pair of boxers. He looked exhausted.

For the split second it took Kavinsky to take Adam in under the darkness of his stoop, Adam considered being embarrassed. But then he remembered Kavinsky had shown up at his _work_ , which was infinitely more thirsty, and merely fixed him with an expectant look.

Kavinsky held the door wide and Adam wheeled his bike inside. K shut the door and locked it again. He didn’t say anything as he took the stairs up at a rather sedate pace. Adam followed. 

Kavinsky’s room was the same as Adam had come to expect it. There was the blueish green light cast off K’s fish tank and the oddly fresh smell that came with the recycled sea water. Adam took a deep silent breath as he shut the door, cutting off the world behind him. This room was like a separate biosphere. He could feel himself shifting. The stress of the night sloughing off him, leaving Adam at his most essential. At his most _present_. He could feel it all as he watched Kavinsky throw himself on the bed.

“You want this,” Kavinsky said, pushing his rumpled covers further away. “You’re going to have to do all the work.”

That was fine with Adam. He wanted the control. Needed to _move_.

He did so, pushing off the door and pulling off his shirt as he crossed the room. Adam kicked off his shoes and his pants followed. The bed was warm when he climbed in. Kavinsky was warm and Adam wanted Kavinsky’s cock inside him. He needed to feel him sliding deep. 

Adam reached for the drawer with the lube.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam wanted to fuck K.

Later Adam would realize he must have been turning the idea over in the back of his mind for a while; consciously however, he was riding Kavinsky’s dick when he first thought of how good it would feel to fuck _him_. The surfacing of such a thought at that specific moment probably had something to do with the way Kavinsky, as he’d promised, was letting Adam do all the work, one arm propped leisurely behind his head, showing off the Pink Panther tattoo on his inner bicep. 

It was silly in a way Adam hadn't expected, though he didn't know why not. Kavinsky had a lot of silly tattoos. 

Perhaps, it struck him too retro. Those movies were so thoroughly not their era. Adam was not up on pop culture, but he knew that the _Pink Panther_ had more or less faded from the public consciousness. The fact that Kavinsky not only knew about it, but felt strongly enough to have a tattoo done for it was weird. Adam realized it was weirder that he knew them, but he could thank his grandmother Merriell’s old rather off-beat video tape collection for that. 

The panther’s heavy-lidded eyes were nonplussed, a gangster’s cigar dangling from one paw, and Kavinsky was just lying there taking it; looking up at Adam, pupils blown, letting out these soft groans.

Adam wanted to know if Kavinsky would sound the same on his cock.

 

 

 

 

 

The sun had been up for thirty minutes by the time Adam roused himself from Kavinsky’s bed the next morning. 

Kavinsky’s alarm hadn’t gone off and Adam was being quiet, though Kavinsky still seemed dead to the world, but as he pulled on his shoes, Kavinsky proved himself to only have been drowsing. 

“Hold up,” he said, voice still musty with sleep as he reached over to grab something off the night table, before coming around the bed.

“Just let yourself in next time, man,” he said pressing a key into Adam’s hand, before disappearing into the bathroom. Adam stared after him, feeling the jagged teeth of the key with his thumb. They were sharp and clean in a way that suggested it was new.

Adam wondered why Kavinsky kept spare keys to his house just lying around.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam was lying with his head half off the side of the bed exactly where he and K had fallen about twenty minutes before. He had a trail of red splotches going down his chest but he hadn’t had the energy to do more than give Kavinsky a sloppy hand-job. Adam was honestly trying not to drift off but his eyes felt so heavy. 

He let them fall shut. Kavinsky’s ceiling wasn’t that interesting anyway. 

The mattress dipped slightly as Kavinsky climbed back in. Instead of curling up at the head of the bed against the pillows or laying down across the width like Adam, he picked up Adam’s feet and settled them in his lap. Then, absurdly, Kavinsky started to _rub_ them, digging his thumbs into the flesh and muscle with a gentle firmness.

“Argh,” Adam groaned, cracking an eye. “What are you doing?”

“Massaging your feet?” Kavinsky said glancing over at Adam rather blankly. “You want me to stop?”

Adam did not. He asked, “Your friends haven't told anyone about us have they?”

“What's there to tell?”

Adam relaxed fractionally. The conversation he’d had in science club a few days before proved people were still interested in who Adam was hooking up with. There hadn't been any question in Adam’s mind that he and Kavinsky would be on the same page with what this was. Kavinsky’s friends however were a different matter and Adam needed to be prepared if they were blabber mouths. Adam propped himself up to fix Kavinsky with a _look_. 

Kavinsky’s expression was bored when he paused in his massage to say, “My friends are the, uh ...paragon of discretion.”

Adam supposed he would have to take Kavinsky's word on that. They had never seemed gabby before, but this was good gossip.

“Would it be a problem if they had?” Kavinsky asked, once Adam had settled back and he resumed his ministrations. 

“Oh come on,” Adam scoffed, as he examined the texture of the plastered ceiling with more interest than it truly merited. 

The bed shifted slightly with Kavinsky’s shrug.

“You're really trying to tell me you don't care if people know you're sleeping with me?” Adam asked.

“Is that something to be ashamed of?”

“I didn't say that.”

“But that's what you meant.”

In a way, it had been. While Adam didn’t feel that way about himself, he knew it would be easy for someone like Kavinsky to see him that way—even if _he_ didn’t, their classmates probably would. Adam wasn’t sure if it would be more of a hit to his or Kavinsky’s reputation if it came out that they were fucking. 

“It's fine,” Kavinsky said. “You don't want to tell anyone. We don’t have to.”

“What's there to tell?” Adam echoed.

Kavinsky scoffed, “Right.”

“Isn't there someone you want to know?” Adam asked. _Someone else Kavinsky wanted to fuck._

“As you pointed out, my friends already know.”

That was not the ‘who’ Adam had meant. 

“You seem rather fixated on this,” Kavinsky observed, switching to Adam’s other foot and cracking his toes. “Have you?”

“No,” Adam said quickly through a wince. “I mean I've brushed the question off if it's come up—hard not to, but never mentioned your name.”

“Then it's not gonna get out,” Kavinsky said in what could have contended for the most laissez-faire voice Adam had heard all year. “You can have my word: this is between us.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam found Kavinsky sitting on the edge of his bed, taking off his shoes.

“Hey, man,” Kavinsky said, with a glance up at him. Adam had stopped somewhere between the door and the bed.

“Hey,” Adam said, pulling at one shoelace, then another, before kicking his own shoes off, all the while working up his courage. “I want to fuck you.”

Kavinsky stopped taking off his socks and looked up, rather startled. Adam was gratified that even if Kavinsky had thought he’d thrown away all his expectations of him, it seemed that Adam could still surprise him. But there was something in K’s eyes Adam hadn’t seen before and it made him apprehensive. 

“You up for it?”

“...yeah, um yeah,” Kavinsky said. “Why not? Let me, uh—” He stood and went into the bathroom, shutting the door.

Adam crossed to the bed and sat down. He let out a deep breath, sliding his open palms against each other. Then he turned and looked after Kavinsky. 

He really hadn't expected Kavinsky to concede so easy. 

Adam removed his socks. Then after a moment of indecision, he took off his shirt and pants too. Then placed his open palms on the sheets and waited. 

A full couple minutes later the door opened again and Adam’s eyes shot up. 

Kavinsky stood in the doorway in just his tank and boxers, but in the time it took him to do whatever he had been doing, something had shifted in his expression. He didn’t leave the doorway. Kavinsky was much easier to read without his shades on. He was watching Adam with a complicated jumble that was half a barb-fence to keep Adam out and half excitement. 

“You can fuck me,” Kavinsky said, taking a step into the room. “But I get to kiss you.” 

Adam had _known_ it wasn't going to be that easy. 

Kavinsky settled back on the bed, close to Adam. “People kiss while fucking,” he continued, as if that were why Adam hadn’t said anything.

“Me fucking you isn't some bad thing that you need to compensate for,” Adam pointed out, turning to pin Kavinsky with a hard look.

But Kavinsky wasn’t looking at him. He had gone really still. “Neither is me kissing you.”

Adam really looked at him then. There was something going on in Kavinsky’s head that had nothing to do with getting one over on Adam. Adam’s reticence on this point obviously struck a nerve, though he had a hard time understanding Kavinsky getting this stuck if it were solely Adam refusing him. So this had to be a further affirmation of Joseph’s... unkissability?

Pure conjecture, but Adam could see it happening. Kavinsky had a reputation and it was totally possible people might not be able to see past his fuckboy persona. Maybe not realizing Kavinsky wanted that, or _not_ wanting that with Kavinsky. Something guilty twisted in Adam’s gut. He was letting his empathy get the better of him and he really didn’t want it too. This was clearly something K felt deeply over. Some common decency Kavinsky felt he deserved even.

Adam hated that he had noticed in the first place.

“Fine.”

Adam closed the distance between them in a rush. He caught Kavinsky off guard and was able to control the kiss, blindly surging into his mouth before bringing something aggressive into it. He carried that through, even when Kavinsky responded; kept with it, annoyed with Kavinsky and himself, as Adam laid K out; even when he reached for the drawer where Kavinsky kept the lube in that red herring of a sun screen bottle and moved down to stretch him out, Adam was rougher than usual. His teeth were out.

“Hold on, babe,” Kavinsky said, stopping Adam with a hand on his deltoid, bracing him away. “Have you ever done this before?”

Adam stared at him.

“Look, it requires some finesse. You need to get your head on straight.”

“What,” Adam said flatly, sitting back.

“Would you want a bull in your china shop? Chill out. Go sit on the side of the bed.”

“I'm not gonna go sit on the side of the bed,” Adam scoffed. 

“Then chill out,” Kavinsky said, lying back. “This is supposed to be fun.”

 

 

 

 

 

He was _in_ Kavinsky. Well partially.

Adam had thrust into him twice, before Kavinsky had essentially clamped down on him, all the muscles in his sphincter were squeezing Adam’s junk and the only reason he hadn’t come right then was because he’d mostly been out and had grabbed the base of his cock _harder_. It had been a near thing though, but it wouldn’t matter at all if Kavinsky wouldn’t take his own advice and _chill_.

“You're gonna have to like relax if you want this to go any further,” Adam advised.

But Kavinsky didn’t. Adam was not going to be able to _fuck_ him if he kept this up. He tried a slightly different angle, but that only tightened Kavinsky's hold on him—which now included K’s fingers digging into his biceps, hard enough to leave bruises. Adam didn’t understand.

It was almost like…

Adam frowned down at K. The shocked gasp Kavinsky had let out when Adam had first slid into him and the way he’d shivered, reminded Adam of how he himself had reacted that first time, in Kavinsky’s car. Obviously, K had never been on the receiving end of Adam’s cock. He couldn’t have been sure what he was in for. A decent fingering was great to warm up with, but it didn’t compare to the fullness that came with a hard cock and Adam wasn’t small. An explanation, but that didn’t seem to cover it. Kavinsky’s reaction was too intense, too prolonged; so much that it struck Adam as having no precedent. 

Kavinsky hadn't done this before.

His eyes were squeezed shut. He still clenched down tight, the tendons in his neck visible; straining.

If Kavinsky had let someone fuck him before, he would have been anticipating this, possibly demanded more fingers because he’d know he was _this_ tight. If Kavinsky had let someone fuck him before, he would know. What Adam was looking down at seemed more like...discovery.

Or pain. 

Hell, Adam was probably reading too much into this. Most likely, it had been a while since K had taken a cock and Adam had done a shitty job stretching him out. Maybe there was something to all that finesse K was talking about earlier.

“Kavinsky,” Adam said and waited. 

Kavinsky hadn’t seemed to hear him over these shallow, audible breaths he was letting out. 

“Joseph,” Adam said, after what was a test of his mile long patience.

K’s eyes snapped open, completely startled.

“Are you alright?” Adam asked. 

Kavinsky let out a short scoffing breath, “Yeah,” his eyes slipped shut again, before he admitted, “You feel amazing.”

From the way K was holding himself, Adam had expected the worst; so he couldn't help grinning though Kavinsky still had his eyes closed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, babe, you do,” K said, though his grin was strained. “You really, really do.”

“You feel amazing too,” Adam told him. 

Kavinsky’s eyes jumped to his. Adam didn’t know how that could come as a surprise, only confirming his suspicions. 

“It gets better,” Adam continued. “You need to relax though.”

“Yeah, but I—” Kavinsky broke off, eyes skittering to the side. 

Adam watched, waiting for him to continue, but K stayed silent and Adam realized his expression had gone sheepish. Kavinsky wasn't giving him much to work with, but Adam thought he had cottoned on to the issue.

“Do you know how close _I_ am?” Adam asked, shifting slightly—not moving like this was killing something in him. Fuck Joseph Kavinsky and his first time, honestly. 

Kavinsky met his eyes.

“I told you: you feel good,” Adam said, a touch rueful. “We're gonna do this again, right?”

“Yes,” Kavinsky said firmly.

“So _relax_ ,” Adam suggested practically, as he attempted another thrust. 

Kavinsky surged up and kissed him. When he broke it off, he asked, “Think we can go again later?”

If the promise of round two was what was going to get Kavinsky to loosen up…Adam would certainly _try_. They hadn’t ever gone twice in one night before, but Adam was pretty sure he could. He _wanted_ to. Though, realistically, he had to admit, “Might need to nap first, but yeah.”

 

 

 

 

 

Walking through the halls of Ag the next morning, Adam felt pretty good. Actually, it had been a long time since things had seemed this...optimistic, even with all the rest of it; his rent, the colleges he was looking at applying for next year, their application fees, his math final, even Tad Curruthers’ morning greeting wasn’t as annoying as usual. 

Adam was on a cloud. 

He knew his good mood had a lot to do with how he and Kavinsky had spent the night previous. Their first round had been over as quickly as anticipated. Kavinsky had taken full advantage of the permission Adam had given to kiss him. Kissing Kavinsky wasn’t bad. It was just so intimate. But then again the whole night had been ridiculously intimate with Kavinsky’s realization, and Adam’s.

It was their second fuck which prompted this understanding on Adam’s part, because it was, without question, the best sex he’d ever had.

Actually, it was as if something had slid into place for both of them.

Adam hadn’t asked and Kavinsky hadn’t said, but Adam was fairly certain that he’d been the first person to fuck him. Considering how quickly K had agreed, how he’d secluded himself in the bathroom to clean up—that had been what he’d been doing in there—and his only stipulation was that they _kiss_ , Adam was willing to bet Kavinsky had wanted to get fucked for a while. Maybe none of his other partners had thought Joey K would be up for it or maybe he hadn't felt comfortable putting it on the table. As if taking it was something to be ashamed of.

For a group so openly gay, it seemed a ridiculous notion to cling to. People as rich as Kavinsky could generally get away with what they liked. But that prejudice was real. There was still a separation from a man who fucked others in the ass and a guy who _got_ fucked, for homophobes at least. Possibly that was some residual hold over from his childhood, because it seemed doubtful that import Bulgarian mobsters were too accepting of gay progeny. That was the only thing Adam could think which had held K back from finding someone to fuck him sooner. Anything beyond that seem to imply he was waiting for someone specific—be that someone who could keep quiet or otherwise. Adam could keep quiet. 

For Adam this whole thing had been reversed. 

Adam had wanted boys in the past, sure. There were boys he’d want to fuck him and others he’d like to bend over himself, but he'd never taken a step towards getting either till that night on the highway. There was something magical about letting Kavinsky fuck him. Gansey was right; it had been reckless, but Adam had needed to _do something_ ; something that was at once wholly his own and yet outwardly unrecognizable. He'd needed to get out of his own head and letting Kavinsky take the wheel had achieved that. 

It had continued achieving that, but last night Adam had taken the control back. 

It had been better than he had ever imagined. Adam liked how hot and alive he was, the way he clung to Adam so tightly at the end like he would blow away if he let go, the noises he could get K to make, and while the orgasm wasn’t quite as overwhelming or defuse as when he took it; Adam liked the control more. 

It seemed more a simple statement of fact than an earth-shattering epiphany. A quiet realization of _rightness_. 

It wasn’t until towards the end of their slower fuck that K had broke off kissing Adam long enough to suck a single hickey, peaking above the collar line on Adam’s neck. That had been just what he needed to push him over the edge. Kavinsky hadn’t broken the skin, but he had left a deep, florid bruise, all maroon and purple. In comparison to what he’d left Adam looking like last week, it was a restrained effort.

When Adam opened his locker to grab his history textbooks, a scrap of folded paper came fluttering out like a demented butterfly. Adam knelt down to pick it up, unfolding it as he stood. 

_Want to go for a drive again tonight?_

The handwriting was unmistakable. Tall letters written with a thin blue felt pen. The corner of Adam’s lips tugged up. Kavinsky’s handwriting was the sort of thing you’d find on a blueprint, not nearly as chaotic as Adam would have guessed a week and a half ago.

There was something quaint about Kavinsky dropping a note in his locker. 

Yeah, tonight wasn’t usually a night they would meet, so it made sense Kavinsky would want to verify. But last night had been amazing and now here Kavinsky had stuck a note in his locker first thing in the morning? This from a boy who’d displayed zero qualms in the past about calling Adam at work or bumping into him in front of the whole school—half the fun of which, Adam assumed, was watching his face as Kavinsky stepped back, letting Adam feel K’s hand leave his inner blazer pocket and a note inside. 

Adam glanced up and down the hallway. Kavinsky was nowhere in sight. Actually Adam hadn’t seen him all day, even though normally they would have passed each other in the hall at least once. 

Adam fished a scrap of mostly blank paper out of the recycling bin as he walked into his history classroom, tore off the used bit, and took his seat to scrawl out a reply. 

_I get off my shift at the warehouse at 10:30 tonight. Meet me in the parking lot. We can go from there._

Adam folded the note. He would slip it in K’s locker on his way to lunch. 

 

 

 

 

 

“You want to fuck me again?” K asked, as they pulled to a stop at a four way. 

“Sure,” Adam said, watching a red Mustang pass in front of them. Anybody who owned one of those cars in that color, in Adam’s experience, loved to drive. It was a rule or something. He wondered if Noah missed it. Adam wondered if he even could still drive. If Ronan had asked Noah if he wanted to try. He doubted it.

“You don't mind?”

Adam was surprised Kavinsky hadn’t taken the turn already. He glanced over at K, “You're joking, right?” 

K shrugged, shoulders falling back into a kind of slump.

“Why would you think I don't want to fuck you?” Adam asked after a moment of observing K's demeanor.

“Maybe you want _me_ to fuck _you_ ,” K pointed out, teeth digging into his lower lip, less out of contemplation than something else.

It was a fair assessment, if not delivered a touch sulkily, because Adam _had_ said he wanted K to fuck him in the beginning and even though it had been obvious K had fucked enough people to be good at it, it was also clear no one had ever fucked him before. Now the way he was treating this conversation...well, Adam wouldn't have pegged Kavinsky for having such a rigid understanding of the sexual side of a gay relationship.

“You _are_ good at that,” Adam said.

K huffed a laugh, not looking at Adam, but his hand on the leather of the steering wheel.

“But if I wanted you to do me, I would have said. I _want_ to fuck you. No offense, but last night was the best sex I’ve ever had. So, as long as that's what _you_ want...”

“Yes,” Kavinsky said, refusing to let the suggestion he _might_ not linger in the air for more than a second.

 

 

 

 

 

“Do you have sixty-one cents?” Adam asked, reluctantly pulling three dollars out of his wallet.

“I most certainly do _not_ ,” Kavinsky said, as he turned the corner of the drive-thru, leaving the order speaker/mic behind. “Look, if I order _for_ you, it’s on my tab.”

“I don’t need you...buying me,” Adam settled on. “That’s not what this is.”

“Oh yeah, like I'm going to buy you with a fucking two thirty-nine shake. Parrish, c’mon,” Kavinsky said fixing him with a disparaging expression. “I _know_ that’s not what this is. Someone else try to buy you for so cheap?”

Adam pursed his lips.

“Chill,” Kavinsky squinted at him. “You really think that's how the rest of us see you?”

Adam shrugged noncommittally.

“It's not,” Kavinsky said frankly. “Not me or my crew, at least. I don’t think I _could_ buy you....If I wanted to try, I know I'd have to do more than a fucking milkshake. It’d have to be....” Kavinsky trailed off clearly trying to find a suitable comparison. “...ah, diamond necklace.”

Adam felt his eyebrows rise of their own volition.

Kavinsky shrugged like he knew that wasn't right, but he couldn't offer anything better, and continued weakly, “...I mean—if anything could.”

Adam stared at K for a full ten seconds before determining, “No, it couldn’t. And that's the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

“Okay,” Kavinsky conceded. “But I think you should consider how good you would look in a diamond necklace. And _only_ a diamond necklace.”

“Please,” Adam said. “No.”

“Ay-hey, I don't think you're grasping how fucking hot that'd be, like don't turn me down yet. I could get you a fake one and we could give it a test run.”

“Don’t bother. You're more interested in this than I am.”

Kavinsky’s expression was aggrieved. He was honestly _pouting_ and Adam, ridiculously, felt the need to placate him.

“What?” Adam asked. “No matching set of earrings in this fantasy of your's?”

“I would,” K allowed, mood brightening a hint as he pulled a car length ahead in the drive-thru. “But you don't have your ears pierced... _although_ , I do know a guy, if you're interested,” he said flicking the gold ring on his left lobe. 

“You’d cover that too?”

“Yeee, babe. With my dirty drug money.”

“Better your dirty drug money, than money given to you by your parents,” Adam said. 

Kavinsky’s business may not have been something Adam considered real work, but at least he _earned_ his money—he wasn’t just cashing in on what his parents made. Kavinsky, of all of the Ag boys, had some concept of the value of a dollar. 

Adam felt K’s eyes on him. Could feel the scientist in him _looking_ at Adam. He ignored him until the car in front of them pulled forward and Kavinsky turned away.

 

 

 

 

 

“ _Adam_ ,” Kavinsky sighed against his lips. 

Adam drew back, wondering exactly when they had gotten on a first name basis.

“What?” Kavinsky asked, finding Adam’s reaction amusing. “I'm not gonna keep calling you ‘Parrish’ in bed.”

“Fine, Joseph.”

“You _can_ call me K.”

Adam wasn’t about to say he already _had_ been doing so mentally. It was a slip—something only Kavinsky’s pack were permitted to do, of which Adam was _not_ , but given their association he felt entitled to it all the same. Mainly because while calling Kavinsky Joseph was entertaining, it was too formal for most situations. 

“You _can't_ call me A.”

“What about 'beautiful?'” Kavinsky wondered, leaning in to kiss at Adam’s jaw.

“You're not funny,” Adam said, pulling back to lock eyes with Kavinsky.

“I wasn't trying to be, babe,” Kavinsky said, eyebrows raised.

Adam turned away.

“C'mon,” Kavinsky continued, drawing out the word, slinking close again pressing his nose in the space of skin below Adam’s ear, as K’s hand moved up his ribs, under his shirt. “You know you're gorgeous.”

Actually, that statement was contrary to everything Adam knew to be true. He was nothing special to look at. Too many freckles, teeth not entirely straight, greyblue eyes, and dust colored hair. 

Plain, that was the word to describe him. Not beautiful. Certainly not gorgeous. Just plain Adam.

So if Kavinsky wasn't trying to be funny, he had to be going for mean. Adam forced himself to scoff and say, “So you know you look about two days off from being a corpse?”

K grimaced, shifting back slightly, just enough to look into Adam's eye, “Why are you still here then?”

It shouldn’t have been a difficult question. There were so many things stacked against his relationship with Kavinsky that Adam probably should have had several good reasons for _continuing_ it. It wasn’t like K was the pinnacle of male beauty. Kavinsky was startlingly thin, had dark bruises perpetually under his eyes, and more scars and tattoos than Adam cared to count. That wasn’t even bringing up Kavinsky’s rather crude humor, the drug dealer thing, which was the last mess Adam needed to be implicated in, and then there was what Gansey would say if he found out. There were just so many reasons for Adam to leave.

Yet he kept coming back. He didn’t have a reason. Except maybe the fact Adam never really felt like he had to tip-toe around Kavinsky. Neither could he deny he liked how easy Kavinsky went down for him. Even now, when Adam pushed K on his back, there was no hesitation as he spread himself out, too lean —a scavenger, and hungry for Adam. 

The fuck was not an apology, but Adam made it good for Kavinsky. He dragged it out till K was writhing, his fingers digging in bruises on Adam’s arms and holding on for dear life. Only when K called him ‘beautiful’ again, did Adam close the distance between them to kiss Kavinsky. He kept kissing him until he was too close to not breathe through his mouth. Adam thought K said something, but he couldn’t hear much of anything over the sound of how hard he was coming. 

When Adam came back to himself, too quickly, Kavinsky’s own breath was coming in ragged gasps, each one a plea for him to “C’mon, beautiful.”

Adam pulled out and rolled to the other side of the bed. 

Kavinsky could finish himself off. 

“God, Parrish,” K groaned and began beating off. “You are one stone cold bitch.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam was sitting on Gansey’s bed. He had his chem homework out and was doing his best to ignore the sounds coming from Ronan’s room. 

The plan had been to meet at Monmouth and then head out from there to Cabeswater. But when Adam had arrived at the warehouse that afternoon, the main room of the loft had been empty. According to a note taped on a cardboard copy of Henrietta’s prominent clock tower, Gansey had driven over to Fox Way to pick up Blue; a note which Adam wished Gansey had tacked on the front door, because there was something sneaky about the BMW not being in the lot when Adam had biked up. Since Gansey was gonna drive them out to the forest in the pig, Ronan might have lent Matthew his keys for the afternoon; a perfectly innocuous brotherly thing. Adam didn’t know if Matthew had his license, though he had a hard time guessing where else the car could be. 

It hadn’t looked like _anyone_ was home when Adam had rode up, though obviously that wasn’t the case and Adam added another hash mark to Ronan’s list of sneaky bastard offenses. 

Adam _could_ go sit outside, but it was already rather warm and, while the warehouse would be stifling in the dead of summer, at the moment the double fans on the ceiling were enough to abate the heat. So he just hoped Gansey and Blue would be back before Ronan came out. 

The door to Ronan’s room opened.

 _No such luck._ Adam held back a sigh and stared at his text, not reading a single word.

“Hey,” Ronan said after he’d taken a few steps into the main room. 

Adam glanced up and gave him a nod. 

“You been doing good?” Ronan asked, after a moment. 

Adam fixed him with a long stare, but said nothing.

Ronan shrugged, which seemed to say he was trying here and Adam was being a dick.

Adam glanced down at his chem homework. 

_How had Adam been?_

He’d gone to the bank last week to see about a loan. The credit union told him that, even though he was emancipated, they couldn’t do anything for him without an adult who wasn’t a credit risk to co-sign. Adam didn’t have one of those and he was trying not to think about the position it put him in. Kavinsky was a nice distraction, but spending a couple nights a week over at his house didn't help much for the rest of the time or what Adam had to come home to, or the fact that everyday he was letting Ronan pay a _majority_ of his rent. 

Adam had been trying not to examine ‘how he’d been’ recently because, if he didn’t dwell on it, maybe he could keep his anger in check. He’d shift his thoughts away, away, away from the anger. He knew it was right there, just at the edge of his vision, in the peripheral. Worse still the force of it hadn't really diminished, not with time or distraction. 

Adam felt that some essential part of himself had been violated with no recourse. 

Ronan had trapped him. Just like when Adam had been living with his parents, now there was no where he could truly relax. There had been a sort of resignation in the way Adam viewed how Robert Parrish had cornered him or rather how Adam had grown up cornered. However wrong his father had treated him and his mother, Robert was still his dad and they were bound by that. They would always be bound by that. But Adam never again intended to find himself feeling as trapped as he had when he was living under his father’s roof. 

So who was Ronan to make Adam feel like that now? What _right_ did he have to insert himself in Adam’s life? Sure, if Ronan hadn’t intervened Adam would have still been up shit creek, but not without a paddle. He would be free to loose the room at the church through his own inability to provide and not at the mercy of Ronan’s _charity_. 

He knew what Gansey would say: that Adam shouldn’t wholly blame Ronan for this situation, because after all it was in part the Ag bureaucracy. It was general greed that issued the tuition raise while refusing to also up Adam’s scholarship to compensate and the fact that most of the parent's of Ag’s rich attendees either wouldn’t care about the increase or wouldn't notice—as if Adam wasn’t so very aware. He had signed up to be a part of this system the moment he had applied to Aglionby, but _on_ his terms. 

It wasn’t the hit to his pride, not the _needing_ charity in the first place, which enraged him senseless—Adam had come up short everyday of his life—no, what made the bile rise in his throat was Ronan’s interference, Ronan’s violation of Adam’s clearly defined limits, which locked him into a debt he would have never taken on in the first place. Sure, Ronan said he wasn’t expecting anything in return, but that wasn’t the point and Ronan didn’t understand—most likely _couldn’t_ understand. He was probably using his father’s money from peddling his dream curiosities—which really was just like rubbing salt in Adam’s wounds. He blew a steady breath out through his nostrils, willing himself not to feel nauseous, and met Ronan’s eyes.

“Do you mean aside from the fact that you started paying two thirds of my rent without my permission, without even consulting me, like it’s any of your business at all, and are now pretending like I’m over-reacting when _you_ violated _my_ boundaries? You mean ‘how I am’ besides that, right?”

Ronan returned his flat stare for several seconds, before sighing and turning away. He disappeared into the kitchen-cum-bathroom and Adam hoped he’d just stay in there. That maybe he’d only come out of his room to throw up because he’d stupidly drank too much the night before but that, of course, wasn’t the case and Ronan appeared about a minute later with a tall boy.

Adam glanced up at him, what was in his hand, and then back to his chemistry reading.

“Gansey isn’t here,” Ronan said, as if that gave him a pass. He took a sip and continued, “And you aren’t going to tell him.”

“I might,” Adam said, out of sheer pettiness.

“You gonna tell us who that is?” Ronan asked, nodding to Adam’s neck. Kavinsky had begun layering his hickeys in more or less one spot—one visible spot, at least—and it was like a little sunrise of purple, blue, pink, yellow, and brown just above his collar now. The sensitivity of the pre-bruised skin was...really nice and Adam didn’t look as totally ridiculous or the victim of a rabid animal. “I guess I should just look around town and see who has the sharpest teeth.”

“You could,” Adam allowed, because that wouldn’t lead him to K. Kavinsky’s teeth weren’t sharper than anyone else’s, he just knew what to do with them.

“Is it someone I know?”

“You have a wide circle of acquaintance,” Adam pointed out, turning a page in the text.

Ronan looked at him for several seconds, his eyebrows practically radiating a contradiction. “I really don’t.”

Which wasn’t true, but Ronan could pretend if he wanted. 

“Can we meet her?” he asked, when Adam was silent for too long.

Adam kept his head bent over his homework. So Blue had told the others his fuckbuddy was a girl. He guessed that was good. The further he could remove their suspicion from ever getting near Kavinsky the better. “It’s just sex,” Adam said finally.

Ronan shrugged as if to say ‘so?’

Adam shrugged back.

Ronan sighed dramatically and drained the rest of his beer. He crushed the can between his hands. “I don’t hate everyone I meet.”

Adam eyed him. The fact he felt the need to say it was telling, especially for Ronan.

“I like Blue,” Ronan said, as if this was some sort of commendation of his restraint. “She can’t be that bad.”

“Trust me,” Adam said. “You wouldn’t like her.”

For a second, Adam thought Ronan might press harder. The next question would be ‘do you like her?’ The answer seemed obvious, but Adam was glad he wasn’t forced to admit it out loud.

 

 

 

 

 

Kavinsky had a lot of stupid tattoos. The kind that Adam could only imagine resulting from a night of being high as a kite and totally in love with.... _pineapple_. But none of them were poke and stick. He had several big expensive pieces on caliber with Ronan's. Most of them looked pretty professional, even the sillier stuff was good quality. Like the bizarre Hobbes floating to earth via an umbrella à la Mary Poppins. The lines weren't fuzzy in the slightest. All his ink was fresh like it had just finished healing.

But there was something about the large piece he had on his thigh that—given the opportunity—kept drawing Adam’s eye. They were lying in K’s bed still naked, Kavinsky’s left thigh bare save the struggling beast it depicted, and Adam found himself examining it. 

“Want some ink?” Kavinsky asked him.  

Adam’s eyes jumped up to meet his.

“I'm sure Jiang would give you one for free just to up his body count,” K continued when Adam didn't immediately answer. 

“Oh, that sounds great,” Adam observed. “That’s definitely gonna convince me.”

“He's still apprenticing,” K said, smile warm at the mention of his friend's improving talents. “I'm just saying you'd be doing _him_ a favor.”

“You let him practice on you?”

“Hell yeah!” K said, pointing to his bicep and the whimsical Hobbes.

“You like those comics?” Adam asked. 

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“What does Socrates have to do with _Calvin & Hobbes_?”

Kavinsky rolled his shoulders and Adam took advantage of the miscommunication to really look at the rest of Kavinsky’s skin.  

There was the panther, a Chinese style dragon eating the sun on the back of his shoulder blade, a miniature pineapple, some indecipherable Cyrillic that Adam assumed was Bulgarian, a winking cat head, a handful of other smaller designs, and then…there was the thigh _piece_. 

It wasn't one of Jiang’s, Adam knew that much. It had the same lines as the infamous octopus Jiang had going down from his abdomen to his hip bone. Jiang had been the final addition to Kavinsky’s posse, rather late in comparison to the others; in the immediate weeks following their return from summer break after grade nine. Apparently the tattoo was proof of the friendship and he refused to stop showing it off all sophomore year. He'd flash anyone who asked a glimpse of the black ink monster. 

Jiang had claimed it was _Kavinsky's_. With the implication that Kavinsky had done it _himself_. 

This statement was more than somewhat difficult to believe; though no one would ever tell Jiang they thought he was lying to his face, not with the pack at his back. Adam couldn't speak to Kavinsky's artistic ability, but K, no matter what hidden creative talents he might have, could not have completed such a complex piece on his own thigh. He must have drawn it and then had some one else ink it in for him. 

The fact that the piece was well done was indisputable, Adam was however rather baffled by the subject. He wasn't even precisely sure _what_ it was. For someone like Kavinsky, who literally had a _dragon_ devouring the sun on his shoulder, inking what was clearly a small time predator on his thigh seemed somewhat a mixed message. Furthermore it's hind legs were caught; looped in a trap of rope and pulled back at an unfortunate angle.  

The design—which could have easily lent itself to a Peter Rabbit style, rich with stipple-like detail—was instead rendered with varying brush strokes, a number of them defining and thick. Its lines were not vintage, not abstract either, not exactly; but more flowing then the real animal. The shading and depth made Adam think it would be even more impressive if the artist— _K_ —had chosen sculpture as his medium instead of ink and skin. The effect wasn’t at all hipster, but it confused Adam more than he'd ever admit, if only because then he'd have to cop to _thinking_ about Kavinsky.   

“What is this?” Adam asked, brushing a knuckle up K’s thigh. “Like an opossum? A raccoon?” Adam guessed, though neither seemed right.  

“It's a badger,” K said, unimpressed.  

“...And does that have some kind of significance to you?”

“Yeah, I'm a Hufflepuff.”

“A—?" Adam blinked. "A what?”

“Oh my god, man! House pride? Harry Potter?” K asked sitting up and giving him a disbelieving look. “You don't know _Harry Potter_? Don't tell Skov. He’ll kill you and then make your corpse watch all eight movies back to back.”

“He'll be overestimating my amount of free time.”

“Well, you’d be dead,” K pointed out. “I don't want you to freak, but at the very least he’ll try to kidnap you.”

“It's a good thing he's not gonna find out.”

“I wouldn't be so sure,” K countered. “I mean I won't bring it up, but he has a way of dragging those books into completely unrelated conversations.”

“Consider me warned. ....what exactly does that entail? Being a—” Adam paused for dramatic air quote effect, “ _Hufflepuff_.”

“Do you know anything about _Harry Potter_?” K squinted at him.

“There’s magic. The main character’s name’s Harry? He goes to a magic school?”

Kavinsky scoffed. “Yeah, alright. Those are the basics. The magic school is called Hogwarts. The students are divided up into houses for easier management and to eh, instill a supposed ‘friendly rivalry.’ There are four houses based off of the four founders of the school and that’s where they get their names, from their last names. So Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff. Each one of the founders valued certain traits in themselves and those became the values each of the houses are based around and what determines which house the students are sorted into when they first enroll.”

“So what did Hufflepuff value?”

“Patience, dedication, and loyalty,” Kavinsky said. “Work hard, play hard, play fair.”

“Succinct,” Adam noted. He was honestly surprised by K’s estimation of himself. Not that he knew what any of the other houses represented and not that he couldn’t see it either, but Kavinsky must have really felt he belonged there to have that _tattooed_. Those traits...were not the first to come to Adam’s head when he thought of Kavinsky. “Okay, what am I?”

“Well, I can only make a guess,” K pointed out. “It's really about what you personally value in yourself, not your predominant traits. Like Harry’s best friend is called the smartest witch of her age a billion times and yet she isn’t put in the smart house. She’s in Gryffindor and that’s because she doesn’t value knowledge for knowledge’s sake but to use it for what she believes in.” 

“So this isn't a horoscope thing?”

K looked affronted. “I just told you what it was—” he started before he seemed to parse Adam's expression. K gave him a hard shove. “You are such a _shit_.”

Adam was grinning as he righted himself. “So traits I value...which are?”

“In my professional opinion—” K started, but at this Adam had raised his eyebrows, “ _Yes!_ Being friends with Skov makes me a professional! You are 100 percent a Slytherin.”

“Okay...and what animal are they?”

“Snakes.”

“Charming.”

“Yeah,” K said drawing out the word. “There's a...stigma against them and they’re typically considered the evil house, but really they just get shit done by whatever means necessary. Protect their friends. Know what they are about and take no shit. Obviously people in other houses can do that too, but like I said house placement is all about what qualities _you_ value most. For Slytherin, it’s ambition, self-preservation, and resourcefulness. Sounds like you, huh?”

“Can't argue with you there.”

“You're in good company. Jiang and Proko are Slytherin too.”

“Do they have 'house pride' tattoos as well?”

“I did designs for everybody when the final _Harry Potter_ came out.”

“I thought that might be one of your’s,” Adam said, brushing a fingertip from the snout up and back over the badger’s curved spine. 

When he glanced up, Kavinsky was watching him too closely. Not merely looking at Adam, but _into him_ —or so it felt. 

“Let me guess,” Adam said quickly, trying to get K’s eyes to loose that glint of _seeing_. “you all went opening night? At midnight? Waited in line and everything?”

Kavinsky had this little smirk at the corner of his mouth like he knew exactly what Adam was thinking. “Kind of a landmark moment.”

“Yeah, sure,” Adam said feeling a smirk of his own starting up. “What I’m getting is all the cars and drugs and parties are really just a front, ‘cause you guys are actually a bunch of nerds.”

K scoffed, then rolled over into Adam’s space, running his right hand up Adam’s flank as he closed in. 

“Could be,” K said, his lips close enough to kiss. “But you better not tell a soul.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam was slumped down in one of the amphitheater seats overlooking the tennis courts. He was high up on the second tier, the part that was covered by the canopy, because Gansey hadn’t brought his sunglasses and the glare on the white pages of his book was too bright. Or at least that was why they had chosen this spot to begin with, but Adam was studying alone now. 

Gansey was down court, speaking with Lee Squared, the captain of the Ag crew team. Lee had spotted Gansey as he was walking along with a contingent of the vancrew on their way to support a friend a court over. 

Lee had called up to him something about how he’d be glad to get back on the water next season. To which Gansey had said, “Lee, about that...” and risen, climbed down the steps, to walk with him a court down, where they’d stopped and had been conversing ever since—probably about how Gansey had petitioned to have his phys ed credit waived for next year. He wanted more time to search and seemed to be under the impression he was running out of it.

Adam glanced down at the court where Ronan was practicing. Ronan was still lazy lobbing the ball back and forth. But Adam was surprised to see Kavinsky loitering on the sideline. He shouldn’t be there at all, let alone _on_ the court. The only way to get down there was through the tennis changing rooms, which should only be open to tennis students and K was dressed for track—where he should be now. 

Adam made a point to not hang out around track practice—not that he ever really had the time, because after all there was a reason why _he_ wasn’t on the track team—but it was common knowledge that K, Skov, and Proko only showed up for the bare minimum and skipped even that frequently. Proko was the only one of them who took the effort to run an event, while K and Skov stuck to field, as the various jumps and throwing involved a lot of standing around in line and, of course, the skills they fostered were transferrable. 

Adam had once over-heard Skov extrapolating at length to Travis—in an attempt to convince him to drop lacrosse for track and field—how the long jump and high jump were helping him up his parkour game. He’d gone on to illustrate this with an anecdote about the last time the police drove up on them tagging the Henrietta sign and how Skov had easily evaded the _pigs_. 

Adam had never seen Kavinsky throw before but he’d heard for someone who never worked-out outside of practice, he wasn't bad. He wasn't particularly good either though and the coaches had long since stopped encouraging him to improve. K’s javelin skills were best exemplified every time he threw a Molotov cocktail at one of his infamous substance parties, or so Adam heard.

“Hey, Lynch,” K called. “Nice back side.”

“Pretty sure you mean back _hand_ ,” a passing player corrected K, choking back a laugh. 

“That too,” K agreed amicably.

Lynch returned his partner’s volley in silence.

“So how about tonight?” K asked, in continuation of some previous conversation. Adam couldn’t see his face but it sounded like he was smirking.

Ronan said ‘no’ without turning and swung at the oncoming ball.

“Is G-Money having a Brownie meeting?”

 _G-money?_ Where did K get this shit? Sometimes his irreverence was so absurd, Adam figured that must be what K spent all his time googling while Adam fell asleep.

“I’m busy,” Ronan snarled as he hit the ball with too much force.

“You couldn’t have texted me that?” K asked, he sounded disappointed. “It’s a simple two letters, Lynch.”

“Lighten up, Lynch!” his opponent yelled. “Geez.”

Ronan refused to deign a response to either K or his tennis partner.

“You worried I wouldn’t treat you right?” K asked after a long minute of silence. 

_What Ronan was probably worried about was what Gansey would say if he heard Ronan agreeing to meet with Kavinsky right in front of him,_ Adam thought. But Ronan hadn’t turned around, so he wasn’t aware that Gansey was still a court over talking with Lee. 

“I’d buy you dinner first,” K said, shooting for lewd and nailing it perfectly. 

“Is that supposed to be enticing?” Ronan demanded, slightly out of breath and returning the volley. “‘Cause it’s _not_.”

“Man, you’re missing out. You should—” But Kavinsky cut himself short. 

“‘I should’ what?” Ronan asked tone clipped, but he _was_ curious. He wouldn’t have asked otherwise. 

Kavinsky rocked back on his heels, but said nothing. Adam had a feeling he knew what K had been about to say. _“You’re missing out, Lynch. Just ask Parrish.”_ But K had stopped himself. _Censored_ himself. 

Then again maybe not, maybe he’d been going to say something else. It was just as likely he could have been about to say _“You’re missing out, Lynch. You should give me a try”_ but didn’t because it was too desperate. It wasn’t like Kavinsky knew Adam had been watching the whole exchange, because K hadn’t taken his eyes off Ronan, clearly appreciating the show. Adam wasn’t about to deny it was a good view. There was a reason he had agreed to study out here with Gansey instead of in the library, where they’d get more done—with the quiet and the full breadth of Ag’s resources at their disposal.

“Never mind. See you around, Lynch,” K said and before Ronan even realized it, K had bounded into his space and, in a parody of the jocular banter of athletes, smacked Ronan on the butt. He danced back out of reach and walked towards the exit two courts over.

Ronan, no doubt highly offended, took the only opportunity for recourse at his disposal and aimed his next swing at K's retreating back.

The shot went wide. Instead of hitting K, the ball careened into another court and off to the sidelines, before bouncing into a cart of water bottles and bananas. Adam could still hear K's laughter over the sounds of distress in the next court over. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam didn't have to work till late and he was more or less caught up on his homework. Not that he’d brought anything with him to K's other than the English book they were supposed to be rereading one last time before the final. 

So it was an empty Saturday morning, as Adam trailed downstairs in his boxers and a tee shirt, idling wondering if he would have to go all the way down to the theater room to see if Kavinsky wanted to _take a shower_. When he rounded the corner to the open concept kitchen living room, he was surprised to find Swan and Jiang picking at the remains of a pop-tart breakfast.

“Hey,” Adam greeted, trying not to let it get awkward and failing. 

“Hey, man,” Swan nodded at him. 

“You’re still here?” Jiang asked.

Adam crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “Where is Kavinsky?”

“His mom wanted him for something,” Swan said equitably. Jiang watched him, expression vaguely sour.

“What's up with her?” Adam asked, conversationally as he reached over to take a Pop Tart package from the box with deliberate casualness.

“Why don't you ask K?” Jiang demanded.

“Because that would be weird,” Swan interjected. “They're not dating.”

“Then he doesn't need to know, does he?” Jiang told Swan, but he was still looking at Adam. He let the moment of uncomfortable eye contact linger, before continuing, something arch slipping into his tone, “That is unless you're becoming friends. Are you?”

Adam took another bite to avoid answering immediately. It was a long bite. He was saved by what could only be the sound of Kavinsky barreling down the stairs. 

Jiang rolled his eyes. 

“Hey!” K greeted his friends as he entered the room and then “Morning, beautiful,” K said, wrapping an arm around Adam’s waist. “I didn't think you'd still be here.”

“Hey,” Adam said, stiffly letting Kavinsky kiss the corner of his mouth. K stepped back and around him, eyes on the Pop Tarts, before reaching over and taking out a fresh package of his own.

“Parrish here, was just saying how he had nothing to do today and couldn’t think of anything more relaxing than spending the rest of it with us,” Swan said. 

Adam glared over at him. He was revising his previous opinion that Swan was alright. 

“Really?” K asked, expression both dubious and...hopeful.

“Yeah,” Jiang chimed in. “He’s tired of playing third to Gansey and Lynch’s fuck fest.”

Adam leveled his glare at Jiang, who returned his gaze unperturbed. 

“Don’t you work later?” K asked.

“Yes,” Adam said. He did have work. _Tonight_. Though he knew better than to volunteer the start time. 

“‘Later’ sounds like the operative word here,” Swan pointed out. 

“I—” Adam started, but he made the mistake of meeting K’s eyes. They were expectant, definitely hopeful, and...braced for disappointment. Why was Kavinsky such an open-book? K wanted Adam to spend the day with him _and his friends_. It was absurd. 

Then Adam thought _why not?_ It wasn’t like he had anything else planned for the rest of the day—he’d been hoping K would want to go another round, but other than that....Adam was more or less caught up on his assignments. If he went home now, the only thing that waited for him was revision. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Where are we going?” Adam asked. There was something belated about voicing this question after nearly thirty minutes of driving, still he had to know. 

Whether by virtue of Adam being K's fuckbuddy or the fact that they essentially had to twist his arm behind his back in order to get him to join, Adam was riding shotgun. They had been to eager to buckle him in the car, before he could change his mind. K had merely said they were gonna take a drive. Consequently, Adam hadn’t thought they were going some place in particular, that was until K turned off the freeway and started taking side streets in what passed for a metropolis in the great state of Virginia.

“Swan needs to show me something,” K said and then turned into a parking lot of an innocuous seeming strip mall. The whole place was kind of dead for a bright, sunny Saturday morning and K was able to park right in front of the entrance to a fencing supply store.

 _Ah._ Swan was the only person Adam knew—even tangentially as he did—who was on the Ag fencing team. He had also never been in a store dedicated exclusively to fencing gear. Actually he hadn’t even been aware such stores existed, not that he’d ever given the sport more than a passing thought. 

What Swan needed to show K took a solid forty-five minutes and consisted entirely of comparing the massive array of swords on the back wall. Well, just the sabre portion of the wall. Swan really didn’t have any use for the foil or épée swords, as the Ag team graduated their students through the different blades and forms of play. Kavinsky stood by as Swan tested each blade, listed off the benefits and things he found annoying, before, bizarrely, handing them over to K; who looked at each one of the blades closely, almost as if he were going to be the one to use them or would at some point be called upon to recite Swan’s opinions on every sword. It was weird because K didn’t fence. 

Adam quickly lost interest and wandered over to a small section of the store dedicated to kendo and then, when they were still not done comparing swords, over to flip through some of the manuals and instruction guides. Jiang, of course, having known what they were in for had brought a sketch pad and was hunkered down on the floor against the pro-counter, drawing. When Swan finally finished looking at the swords, K wandered over to Adam. He looked over Adam’s arm at the photos in the book he’d been flipping through while Swan made a circuit of the rest of the gear. 

“All that and he isn't gonna buy one?” Adam asked after ten more minutes. Swan had finally made a selection and was checking out. Amazingly enough, after all that deliberation, he wasn't even buying a new sabre.

“Nah, that was the plan all along,” K said. “I can get him a better deal, actually.”

Adam took his eyes off the checker ringing up Swan’s gear to consider Kavinsky. They didn't talk about Adam's work or K's business. Commitments for either were respected without complaint and Adam liked it that way. He really didn't want to know about Joey K's forgeries. Adam already doubted that his claim of not knowing anything about it—which he didn't—was truly believable, given his and K's relationship if any sort of law enforcement ever caught up with K. For that reason alone, Adam really didn't want to know, but a knockoff regulation sabre had to be the strangest thing Adam ever heard of Kavinsky getting for someone. “You're connections extend that far?”

Kavinsky gave him a lazy smile, effortlessly charming and oddly honest. “Anything you want, babe.”

 

 

 

 

 

“I took a little drive.”

“Is that supposed to be big news?” Adam asked absently. He was opening K up, stretching him on two fingers.

“Your bud was in the other car,” K exhaled as Adam added a third.

“My bud?” Adam repeated. He had no idea what Kavinsky was talking about. 

“Lynch.”

Adam sat back. _Why was K telling him this?_ “You raced Ronan?”

“He came looking for me.”

“And you, what? Decided to humor him?” Adam asked. “Please, you jump at any chance he might pay attention to you.”

Kavinsky watched him expression inscrutable, unfazed by the derision in Adam’s voice. “Are you jealous?”

“What would I have to be jealous of?” Adam flicked his eyes to Kavinsky's, before asking, “Ronan’s dad’s old car?”

Kavinsky’s eyes flicked away and he shrugged.

Adam rolled on the condom.

“I can't believe you,” K scoffed. When Adam looked up again, he was smirking.

Adam had an idea why K was making that face—what K thought Adam was thinking just then—but Kavinsky was wrong and Adam wanted nothing more than to wipe that smirk off. Adam slicked himself up and, without any warning, slid into Kavinsky, and asked, “Did he win?”

Ronan was always bragging about winning street races, highway races, drag races, all the races he took on against Kavinsky and his friends. Kavinsky wasn't exactly a great sport, but he was a particularly bad one when it came to loosing against Ronan.

“God, Parrish,” Kavinsky groaned, _not_ in pleasure. “You are something else.”

“Did he?” Adam pressed.

“Not this time,” Kavinsky said in a sing-songy voice. 

Adam watched him. He was grinning; stretching out, flexing his arms above his head, skin thin over his rib cage, eyes closed, lost in some private reverie. Obviously a reliving of the night's earlier events. 

Adam had given K more than enough time to adjust to his cock, but he still didn’t move. It wasn’t too much to expect Kavinsky to be here when they were together. Adam knew he wasn't K's first choice. He _knew_ that. Hell, Kavinsky wasn't Adam's either if he was being honest, but this was his. What he and Kavinsky did was his, because Adam _was_ here—unlike Ronan, who’d had more than his fair share of opportunities to bang K and had let each and every one of them sail past him. If Adam was fucking K, then K was gonna be present while _Adam_ was fucking him. 

“Say my name.”

Kavinsky cracked an eye. “Are you a closet narcissist?”

“Just do it,” Adam said now genuinely annoyed. As if Kavinsky didn’t _know_ how irritated he was making him with all this talk of _fucking_ Ronan.

“Alright, _Adam_ ,” Kavinsky said, one hand coming up to cup the back of Adam’s neck. “But you're gonna be asking me to stop. Adam Parrish.”

“No, I won't.”

“Yes, beautiful, you will.” K’s voice was just as serious as Adam’s, but his eyes were smiling. 

“My name, K,” Adam demanded before beginning to fuck him in earnest. 

“Adam,” K said breathily against the skin just below Adam’s good ear on the second thrust and it was nice. 

“ _Adam,_ ” K said again, but his voice had gone theatrical. Mocking.

Adam jerked away, glaring down at K’s horrible smirk. Something like resentment started up in his veins, as Adam took in Kavinsky’s quirked lips, his clean jawline, the sharp protrusions of his collarbones, and, in between the two, the pale lines of Kavinsky's throat. An idea seized hold of Adam.

He narrowed the space between them, guiding himself back inside K, and started fucking him again. Adam ducked down and let his lips brush along K's skin. Then he closed his mouth around a particular stretch of K’s neck. Adam was rewarded by Kavinsky’s sharp intake of breath as he started worrying the skin. 

“Adam.”

Adam changed the angle of his thrusts slightly to what he knew tended to light up Kavinsky’s nerves the most. He felt K's fingers dig into the tissue of his shoulder.

“Adam.”

Adam licked the spot he’d been worrying and then bit down. His teeth may not have been straight, but he took care of them. They worked just fine.

“ _Adam_ ,” Kavinsky actually moaned his name, all the teasing gone out of him.

That was more what Adam had been looking for. He moved his lips, settling into a more relentless pace.

“Adam, uh,” Kavinsky gasped. “Adam, uh, Ah—ah _Adam_ , uh, _uhhh—_ ”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam tossed the dirty tissues in the trash can before standing behind Kavinsky. The vanity mirror, which spanned the whole of the bathroom wall, made K look small. He’d been standing in front of it for a good minute, just looking at the hickeys Adam had left.  

Adam examined his work. All and all they were a restrained effort. Two concentrated circular smatterings of burst red blood vessels. One was low enough, along the seam of his neck, that he could easily hide it with the collar of an Ag button up if he wanted. The other though was several inches higher—in plain sight and undisguisable.

“Turn around's fair play,” Adam said, meeting K's eyes in the glass.

“That it is,” K agreed, he leaned forward, bracing his hands on the vanity and angling his neck. “Nice work.”

 

 

 

 

 

The single visible hickey Adam left on Kavinsky was barely a blip on their classmates radar’s the next day. Compared to the rest of Joey K’s reputation, it really wasn’t worth mentioning.

What speculation there was, however, Adam tried to listen in on. Initially, it pegged Lynch as the culprit. Apparently, the race K’d mentioned had spectators and, possibly, some of their classmates thought the mark might have been some kind of payback for beating him on the streets. 

Apparently, someone actually had the gall to ask K point blank if it was Lynch and, rather candidly or so Adam heard, K admitted it wasn’t. He was willing to bet this was a move on K’s part to make Ronan jealous. Adam wondered why he kept trying, because all Ronan did when he saw Kavinsky later that day was look at him a second longer than he usually did. Which could have meant a lot of things with Ronan, but Adam banked it was a disappointing reaction for Kavinsky.

Even with it confirmed to have not been Lynch, Ronan’s name still came up. 

“Sure, it may not have been _Lynch_ up close and personal,” Adam heard Cheng2 say, rather snidely as Adam walked behind him in the hall. He continued, “but Kavinsky had _wanted_ it to be.” He wasn’t the only one to think that Joey K had been so riled up after winning, that he’d called up some townie tail he had on speed dial—or so the speculation went.

It was closer to the truth than Adam liked. It left him uneasy, even if absolutely no one—with the exception of Kavinsky—was looking in _his_ direction.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam was taking his lunch in the library to work on his math homework. It wasn't a total slog, but it was taking longer than he wanted. There were only ten minutes of lunch left and he still had eight more problems. He’d probably have to come in tomorrow too. It was a good thing he had math in the afternoon. 

The chair next to his at the table was pulled out and someone sat down next to him. 

Adam glanced over reflexively but stopped short when he saw it was _Kavinsky_. K was less than a reasonable distance away, but studiously not looking at Adam. 

This was not what they did. 

K opened up the notebook he’d been carrying and took out a blank sheet of paper. He scrawled something on it with a pencil and pushed it over to Adam. 

_I liked you like that_

Adam didn't say anything. K took the paper back and wrote something and gave it back to Adam.

_frustrated_

Adam glanced at the paper and tried to keep from frowning. 

_I could tell you liked it too_

K’s clear, tall letters calling him out. Adam sighed internally and reached for the sheet. 

_I don't like the fall out._

_When has that mattered?_

_You don't want to frustrate me on purpose, Joseph._

K made this strange ‘hurumphing’ noise as he read that, before quickly jotting out: 

_No but that was good_

K had underlined ‘good’ three times. Adam had to concede that after they’d really got going it had been.

_I got what I wanted. Eventually._

_Alright, good. Stop avoiding me._

Avoiding Kavinsky was not what Adam had been doing. He’d been busy. He wrote as much.

_I’m not ~avoiding you. I’ve been busy. Work. School. Heard of them?_

_sure jan_

He glanced up at K in confusion. 

“It’s a meme,” K whispered with a shrug. “Blame Skov.”

Adam rolled his eyes. He wasn’t about to admit there were other reasons, beyond the obvious need to borrow a calculator, for him to spend his lunch in the library. Reasons that had everything to do with how desperate Kavinsky was for Lynch. Adam had no desire to study on why the looks he saw K give Ronan bothered him like they did. 

It wasn’t that Adam was jealous. 

Only that having a front row seat to Kavinsky’s pining brought Adam’s concern at the lengths a neglected Kavinsky would go to the fore. It was why he’d had such a problem with K bringing up Ronan while they were in bed. 

The thing was: Adam wasn’t entirely sure Kavinsky wouldn’t just _tell_ Lynch they’d been sleeping together. 

There was no way to guess how Ronan would react to the news. It could go either way, but sometimes Adam didn’t think Kavinsky cared. Some of the things he did to Lynch, _for him_ , weren’t always nice; things that were geared to get a rise out of Ronan, to start a fight. Sometimes, it didn’t seem to matter to Kavinsky if the attention Ronan gave him was good or bad, as long as he had all of it, even if he was essentially poking a bear. If Kavinsky told Ronan any of what they had been doing—on a regular basis—K had to know he would have Ronan’s undivided attention. 

It was the ace up his sleeve that K hadn’t played yet and Adam couldn’t help thinking that Kavinsky was just waiting for the right time to drop the fact on Lynch or maybe even Gansey. Sure, K had told him this would stay between them, but what reason did he really have to honor his word to _Adam?_

And what would K have to loose? 

Adam’s dick? He thought Kavinsky was smart enough to know that if he told Gansey or Ronan that their arrangement would stop. But Adam didn’t really think that would give Kavinsky much pause if he actually got it in his mind to spread their sex life around the school. Yeah, Adam knew K liked his dick and what Adam did with it, but he wouldn’t be that hard to replace. Now that Kavinsky knew what he liked, he could own it, he could demand it. Adam doubted it would take someone like Joseph Kavinsky long to find some other guy to bend him over and fuck him right, even if it wasn’t Ronan.

Adam had been twisting this over in his head the last couple of days. The only thing that calmed his over active imagination in moments like this was the fact that Adam didn’t think K had any proof. Other than the key, it would be all he said, he said.

But it was never about proof. Kavinsky merely casting auspicions was enough to throw Adam in hot water. Those allegations would necessitate Adam denying Kavinsky. It would be so easy too. Gansey would expect it. He would probably feel like he was doing Adam a disservice even suggesting such a thing. But Gansey _would_ ask because Adam was no longer beyond reproach, not after April. 

It happened like this, whenever Adam hadn’t been with K for a few days. He’d start to second guess his read on Kavinsky and fall back to the default of assuming the worst. The Kavinsky Adam saw at school was flattened out, a two-dimensional annoyance, instead of the strangely nuanced boy Adam knew him to be. 

The nature of their connection would shift and become uncertain, until Adam couldn’t come up with a single reason why he was trusting Kavinsky like this. But then he’d get K on his own again and it all snapped back into focus. Adam never understood why he’d been suspicious at all. Tonight he’d usually go to K’s anyway, but…Adam had to make this clear. He pulled the paper towards him again.

_Don't do that again._

K picked up his pencil, but Adam snatched the paper back.

_No excuses. Don't bring up Lynch to piss me off. Don't talk about him while we're fucking, when we are about to fuck, or after we're done, alright?_

Kavinsky stared at the paper for several seconds, before turning to Adam fully. He held up his hand between them, pinky extended and expression solemn.

 _A pinky swear?_ Adam scoffed but hooked pinkies with K anyway, shaking twice.

Adam thought they were done but Kavinsky only shifted his grip on Adam’s pinky so they were clasping hands, before he pulled him in for the half-hug he had seen K and his friends give each other. Adam was too stunned to do anything other than rest his arm across K’s back and then it was over. 

Kavinsky pulled back quickly and stood. He closed his notebook and picked up the incriminating paper, which he ripped up as he walked, dumping it in the blue recycling bin before he left the library.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam locked the front door and was shrugging off his backpack when a figure appeared in the hall. It blocked out part of the light that filled the foyer from the sliding glass door in the living room beyond. 

“Hey, babe,” Kavinsky said before taking a step forward and bouncing up on his toes to _kiss_ Adam. 

Kavinsky had started taking the liberty of kissing him in greeting whenever he could get away with it. While Adam had no problem with the way K’s kisses lingered with intention when he found him alone after a late shift, it was a different matter when Adam showed up earlier in the evening or on a weekend with K's friends around. Kavinsky would give him a chaste kiss on the lips. Casual and familiar. Too familiar for how long they'd been doing this. Really it was too familiar for fuckbuddies. At least for how Adam thought fuckbuddies should be.  

He had mixed feelings about it. It was obvious K enjoyed kissing him immensely. K wasn’t a bad kisser. He was actually good, but it felt like something a couple would do after being together for years. He and K weren't even dating and if these kisses couldn't lead anywhere....Adam wasn't sure he saw the point. Half the time Kavinsky was trying to kiss him it wasn't like they could fuck anyway. 

The thing was Adam had yet to tamp down on it. He hadn’t complained because letting Kavinsky have that gave Adam an excuse to touch him more and outside of a strictly sexual situation. 

There was something beautifully novel about just touching Kavinsky, the feel of his skin under Adam's hands, that had yet to wear off. Just as no one had really touched him with the intention of making him feel good or to elicit pleasure, neither had Adam really touched anyone else. Certainly not the way he touched Kavinsky and definitely not with the languor and freedom K allowed him. 

Adam didn’t want to upset the ease to the way they did things now by putting limitations on it. They were already so limited outside their little private bubble, it seemed a crime to bring some of those restrictions inside. 

“This is a nice surprise,” K said when he broke for breath. Adam straightened, but K moved up on his toes to kiss Adam again. Kavinsky was nearly too short to be doing that. “You don’t have work this afternoon?”

“Nope. You're going to strain something if you keep that up,” Adam observed, one hand on K’s waist—his skin warm through the ribbed white cotton of the tank. 

“You're not making it easier for me,” K pointed out as he settled back on his heels.

“It's not my fault you're short.”

“Hey! I am _slightly_ below average. That wouldn't be a problem If you weren't so fucking tall. Besides, If you were really concerned about my well being, you could just pick me up.”

Adam eyed Kavinsky for several seconds. He'd said it as a joke, but Adam took it as a dare. 

K let out a yelp when Adam hoisted him up. His startled eyes met Adam's. 

“I huck boxes around and work on cars for thirty hours every week. You really think I couldn’t pick you up?”

K gave a half-hearted shrug and lazily wrapped his legs around Adam's waist, locking his ankles. But there was something forced to it. He looked a bit pink. Adam stood there in the middle of the front hall just holding Kavinsky, until it became clear _why_. 

It didn’t take long.

“You seem to be...getting flustered,” Adam noted. 

“I'm fine,” K said, briskly. That was clearly not the case. Adam could feel him getting hard.

“Really? Some _thing_ else suggests other—”

“Aren't you getting tired? Because—”

“No,” Adam scoffed and felt his lips tugging into a smirk.

“—if you _are_ , you could set me on the island and we could continue this....” K trailed off, trying for seductive. 

“I am not having sex in your kitchen,” Adam said. “Stop deflecting.”

K tried not to pout. 

Adam tried not to laugh. Kavinsky just looked so ridiculous making that face. 

Unfortunately, as mercurial as K was, Adam didn’t like being the cause of Kavinsky getting put out. For some reason, it made Adam feel wrong-footed, off-balance, because that was never his intention. He never intended to put K out, not over little things like this.

It was deeply unfortunate, but for whatever reason, Adam just couldn’t have that on his conscious.

So Adam spun them in a circle. K's grip on him tightened, but he laughed, high and delighted, as Adam turned in place again and again and again.

K was kissing him before they'd even stopped. Adam readjusted his grip on K, shifting him slightly to get a better grip on Kavinsky's ass. 

K inhaled a shocked breath, followed by a _growl_.

It was one of the only places on his body K had much fat and Adam really liked getting ahold of it. He was suddenly and extremely pleased that Kavinsky had already changed out of his Ag trousers and into some navy joggers—the fabric of which allowed Adam to really dig his fingers into the meat of K's ass. The fact that he wore them frustratingly well, even caught up around the tops of his calves like they were, was an added bonus.

One of K’s hands had buried itself in Adam’s hair, the other was still crossed over his back, gripping his shoulder, and Adam could admit he was starting to get a bit worked up himself. Either he could carry K up the stairs to his bed—not impossible, but honestly more effort than he was willing to exert—or he could set him down in the kitchen. The island _was_ a lot closer than K’s bedroom. Adam walked them over to the granite countertop and put K down. 

“You are so _easy_ ,” Adam said into K's lips before letting Kavinsky kiss him. _Maybe sex in the kitchen wasn’t such a bad idea._

Then, absurdly, Adam heard the locks turning in the front door. 

“Ay, K!” a voice called from the foyer. “Where you at, hun?”

“Check the wheels,” another voice said. That was Swan.

“He's probably got Parrish pounding his ass,” Jiang said. But K’s friends were already stepping into the living room. Kavinsky didn't even bother dignifying any of what they said with a verbal response, only watched them with a light amusement as he kept a hold of Adam. 

“Well, hello!” Skov greeted as he, Jiang, and Swan came to a stop. Only Swan had the decency to glance away. 

“Proko and Morris are getting soda,” Swan reported, his eyes out the window. “Matty will be over once he’s done with debate.”

“I know,” K said.

“Then why are you about to get down in the kitchen?” Jiang wondered aloud, crossing his arms and shoving his hands under them. 

“You're early,” K said flatly. “What happened to running through your group presentation five times or whatever Sicksteve was saying?”

“Yeah, we might have if Bacon had finished his section of the fucking speech,” Jiang said with a undisguised eye-roll. 

“He promised he’d have it done by tomorrow though,” Skov said, rocking forward on his toes and bouncing a couple of times. “So we’re doing to tomorrow!”

“I’ll just—” Adam said, and gestured as if to go.

“Hey, no! Parrish, you can stay,” Skov told him.

Adam opened his mouth to begin another protest, but Skov continued over him.

“Fuckbuddies are allowed to join in our Mario Carting!”

Adam glanced at Kavinsky with the raised eyebrows of a dubious expression that attempted to ask: _Mario Carting?_

K shrugged. 

“We're gonna have pizza later too,” Skov continued. “After we smoke this new weed K cooked up—”

Jiang smacked Skov’s arm none too gently. 

“What?” Skov turned on him in outrage. 

“You are such a fucktard,” Jiang said as if that were all the explanation necessary.

“The fuck!”

“Blake...” Swan started.

“Don’t ‘Blake’ me! Parrish doesn’t care if we smoke!” Skov protested. “That's not new information to you, is it?”

Adam shook his head.

“So woop-de-fuck!”

“Babe,” K began in a surprisingly patient voice for all his friend’s antics interrupting their hook up. “I don't think _that_ was the information they were trying to stop you from, eh...disclosing.” 

Skov stared at him for several long moments before he started. “Oh fuck,” Skov said, clapping a hand over his mouth. 

“You missed the point,” Jiang said, patting him on the back. “As usual. But no harm done. Right, Parrish?”

“...right, whatever,” Adam agreed after a moment. Frankly, he didn't care what their internal squabble was about if he could _leave_. “I think I should just—”

K, for some inexplicable reason, tightened his grip on Adam's biceps. He hadn't released his legs from their hold around his waist either. Why Adam didn’t know. They’d both lost their hard-ons sometimes since his friends’ appearance. Adam kept his own hands solidly and firmly on Kavinsky’s hips to brace K where he was, refusing to be pulled any closer.

“Let me put it to you like this,” Skov said, apparently having regained his usual buoyancy. “If you stay, K will _still_ order that pizza.”

“Parrish ain’t gonna stay for pizza,” Swan said with a roll of the eye. 

“You’re not asking right,” K scoffed. He moved to brush his lips along the lobe of Adam's bad ear—not even bothering with the pretense of a whisper—he told Adam, in false confidence: “If you want, you can use my laptop to type up that essay while we watch a couple movies and then after...we can...” K trailed off, pulling back and catching Adam's eye with a significant look. 

“Gross!” Skov yelled, while Jiang groaned, “Save it for the fucking bedroom.”

Adam held K’s gaze. Even if he wasn’t entirely sure what he thought of K's friends, with a promise like that he figured he’d be able to stand them for a night. 

 

 

 

 

 

It probably had something to do with how Adam hadn’t expected much, but he was actually enjoying tooling around with K’s friends. 

Skov had all but dragged Adam down to the theater room in the basement, while Kavinsky had gone to grab his laptop. Adam hadn’t really spent much time down here, but it was an impressive set-up. A projector, a huge white screen, rows of theater seats and a few low couches down in front. After K set him up, Adam opened up his Google Doc and mostly ignored the others as they played a few rounds of Mario Cart and waited for the rest of the pack to show. Adam was vaguely aware Skov and Jiang were bickering about cheat codes.

Morris and Proko didn’t take long before showing up and they all shuffled out into the hallway to light up, not bothering to wait for Rasmussen. Adam made some progress on his essay while they were getting high. Swan left a good half foot between them, enough room for Adam’s elbows as he typed. 

After working up a thorough buzz, they began a marathon of these British parody movies.

“Have you seen any of these before, Parrish?” Proko asked after they told him what was in tonight’s queue.

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of them, actually.”

“Oh shit! You are in for a treat, man!” Skov talked over the images of the studio logo forming and dissolving on the screen, telling him who was in the movie—a list of actors Adam had never heard of—and other various details about the films. All of which made Adam wonder why Skov knew any of it at all. 

“You can’t be serious,” Adam said after Skov told him the trilogy of movies were ridiculously named after ice cream. 

“I totally am! It’s a running joke. You’ll see!”

Despite the dubious naming, the first movie was hilarious. Adam really didn’t write much after the zombies started coming out of the wood work.

About halfway through, someone nudged him. 

It took Adam a second to drag his attention from the screen. K was squat down next to Adam’s armrest of the couch, phone in hand. “What kinda pizza you like?”

“I’m good with whatever.”

“Pepperoni?” K asked. He was peering at Adam expectantly. “Supreme?”

Adam shrugged. “Sure.”

“Okay....” Kavinsky said and heaved himself from the crouch, his phone already calling out as he stepped into the hallway. 

The doorbell didn’t ring until after they had put in the second movie. 

_Hot Fuzz_ was paused as Proko and K went to get the pizza, while Skov and Jiang went to grab cups and soda. Morris was getting a roll of paper towels.

It was just him, Swan, and Rasmussen in the basement. Adam had tried to offer to help grab _something_ , but K and Skov _and_ Proko had demanded he sit and chill. 

“How you holding up, Parrish?” Swan asked. Adam wondered if Kavinsky had asked his friend to check in on him over the course of the night. 

“I’m good,” Adam admitted, though he conceded he wouldn’t be working anymore. He saved his paper to the cloud and closed the laptop. Rasmussen was clearing off the coffee table and he took the computer to a table on the far side of the room, well away from any potentially greasy pizza smudges. Jiang and Skov reappeared less than a minute later with solo cups full of ice and a couple liters of soda, which they set up on a cabinet in the back of the room.

Then Proko and K came down with Morris and a stack of pizzas honestly half as tall as Skov and set them out on the table. All of the boys swarmed around them, vying for seats on the front couch. 

“Scoot over, babe,” K asked Adam. 

Adam did and Kavinsky sat next to him. K’s friends gathered around the table sorting through what pizzas were what. K pulled a box towards them and flipped it open. “Supreme?”

“I’m good with whatever,” Adam repeated taking a slice. In order to prove this he continued, “Ronan’s favorite kind of pizza is sausage and cheese.”

Adam turned to find K giving him a half-distressed, half-disgusted look. 

“If you needed another reason to _not_ go after that boy,” Morris told K, as he passed a double square of paper towel down, swan passed it to Adam, and Adam handed it on to K. Another square was passed down for Adam. “That’s it. Right there.”

“Disgraceful,” Jiang agreed.

Kavinsky was staring at the pizza, expression vaguely nauseated.

“It’s not...terrible,” Adam allowed. His pizza experience was not as wide as it could have been, but Adam knew it wasn’t terrible. It also wasn’t that great—rather plain for something he knew cost _that_ much. Not that Adam, as the recipient of free food, was in any place to complain. It _wasn’t_ terrible, but Adam definitely was not going to mention Gansey and his penchant for avocado and garlic aioli sauce. 

“That is Unfortunate TM,” Skov agreed, as he came around to the front of the theater. He stopped in front of Adam and K holding two cups. The one with a fizzing dark liquid went to K and Skov handed Adam a quite full glass of neon yellow liquid. “This is straight Mountain Dew,” he said earnestly and with an exaggerated directness, that seemed to suggest someone had told him that Adam wouldn’t drink from a glass he himself had not poured, unless he was assured of its non-alcoholic contents.

“Thanks,” Adam said, glad there was a table in front of him to set it on. 

“Your wecls!” Skov said brightly. He moved to his place down the couch and the movie was started back up.

Even when most of the pizza had been devoured and the last paper towel was thrown, they still remained all crammed on that front couch. Somehow it worked out to be K, him, Swan, Skov, Matty, Proko, Morris, while Jiang had the sense to stake out his own space in the row behind them. From mid calve to shoulder they were stacked against each other, a whole room of chairs and here they were packed in like needless sardines. Adam didn’t say anything though. Every point where K's arm, stretched along the back side of the sofa, touched his neck was hot and a promise of _later_.

It was a good night, even if he had ended up dozing mid-way through the third film. Adam couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed out-loud that often in the span of one evening. It had been a few months, at least. 

Also K’s friends were just interesting. Aglionby wasn’t a big school, so Adam had some idea what all the boys in his year were generally about and some of the seniors as well. Adam had heard K talk about them sometimes in the gaps of time around when they fucked, but seeing the group dynamic in action was fascinating. 

Like Skov never seemed able to filter his comments, but he was particularly bad while high. It was Rasmussen who typically called him out with occasional and yet poignantly astute observations. Proko getting a giggly kind of tipsy on apparently not straight Mountain Dew and hiding his face in Morris’ shoulder. Morris would wait until Proko’s fit subsided before he would whisper something else to him that would only set Proko off again. Jiang kept throwing pillows and cushions at them in protest, until he was so disgusted that he went out into the hallway to smoke, dragging K with him. When they came back in, the third movie was almost done and instead of sitting back down, Kavinsky stood behind Adam massaging his shoulders; trying to bring Adam out of his dozing state. K wanted him awake for what he’d promised after. 

“What about me?” Swan asked K when he had stopped working on Adam and the film’s denouement was playing on the screen. “All the things I do for you...”

“You’re compensated,” K said bracing his arms on the back of the couch holding Swan’s eyes.

“Monetarily,” Swan agreed. “But it’s dangerous work.”

K scoffed. Adam watched, infinitely more interested in this exchange then in the movie, not the least of which as he had slept through part of it and didn’t know what he had missed. And in all honesty, Swan really should be jealous. Kavinsky gave a mean shoulder rub.

“What if I say I want my hazard pay in massages?”

“Jealous?”

“I don’t know,” Swan pondered. “Parrish seems to be a pretty happy customer...” Here he winked at Adam, before continuing coquettishly, “Really, I just want your hands on me.”

“I’m telling Ryang,” K scoffed, settling his hands on to Swan’s shoulders.

“Tell him,” Swan shrugged. “He knows I have needs.”

“Oh my godddddddd,” Skov groaned. “ _Stop!_ I’m trying to watch!”

K continued to rub Swan’s shoulders for the remaining few minutes of the film. When it was over, Swan and Matty took charge of clearing the remains of dinner from the theater. Upstairs in the living room Proko had pulled out a backgammon set and was arranging the pieces for a game, while Skov asked if he was sure that they couldn’t maybe play poker instead. Morris had disappeared to the bathroom. Jiang was perched on a barstool in the kitchen, glued to his phone. 

Adam’s night closed as he knew it would. Kavinsky pressing himself against Adam as soon as the bedroom door shut behind them. K’s tongue in his mouth, teasing, and Adam walking K backward to the bed; pushing his advantage and tasting the sugar of K’s rootbeer tinged breath. It was with the short-lived awakeness granted by his nap with which Adam beat them both off, while Kavinsky sucked on his neck. 

The last thing Adam thought of before falling asleep on the side of K’s bed he’d commandeered as his was of Detective Angel’s peace lily. Adam thought it would be nice to keep a plant. 

He could set it in the sill of his window and it could drink up the afternoon sun. 

 

 

 

 

 

For whatever reason, be it the blow Ronan’s pride took by loosing a race or otherwise, Ronan and Kavinsky were out again. 

This had happened seven or ten times in the last six months. Adam hadn’t bothered to keep an exact count. Now though they weren’t even acknowledging each other. Not on the streets and not at Ag. For Ronan, this was closer to business as usual, particularly when Gansey was around. 

But for K it was peculiar. 

Adam couldn’t think of a time in the first two years of Ag, Kavinsky had ever given Lynch a second glance. Then last fall, there was Lynch senior's murder, and Ronan’s ‘suicide attempt’— _that tattoo_ —and suddenly Kavinsky would do anything for Ronan’s attention. He heckled him in the quad, invaded his personal space while walking to class, or would wait for him on the hood of his car. K’s shout of ‘Lynch’—the harsh syllables of the name, made even harsher in Kavinsky’s accent—frequently echoed the halls. Adam had seen him mope during these off periods of his and Ronan’s on-again-off-again…association, but by and large K’s ‘off’ behavior rarely differed that much from when they were on—it was just less invasions of personal space and more shouting, typically threats.  

Whatever their fight was about this time though saw K occasionally sending glares at Ronan’s back but by and large he was preoccupied. Kavinsky was busy flitting around town for drops, chilling with his friends, planning his end-of-the-year party—an event he was particularly invested in as both Rasmussen and Morris were graduating this year—and hooking up with Adam. Ronan in turn skulked around Monmouth and actually let Gansey drag him to classes or on the Glendower related excursions. 

Adam didn't understand what Ronan got out of his interactions with Kavinsky. Adam’s first thought was Lynch liked Kavinsky, because not he, Ronan, or Gansey—none of them were _straight_. But Ronan, unlike Adam or Gansey, had never once indicated he might be interested in a girl. But if Ronan really wanted Kavinsky, why hadn't he made a move? For Adam, who's relationship with K existed almost entirely in such gratification, the exclusion of it was beyond confusing. 

Possibly it wasn’t that. Though...hard to believe Ronan was oblivious to K’s desire. So maybe he enjoyed stringing Kavinsky on. Maybe he _didn't_ care about K's side of it at all and Kavinsky was simply a convenient escape from Gansey's parental and sometimes overbearing presence.  

It could have even been both, but even together neither seemed to cover it.  

It was probably more like Ronan liked the _idea_ of Kavinsky. But Kavinsky himself was too much—his personality abrasive and only tolerable in small doses, spread out over time. Kavinsky however, Adam thought, probably would take whatever bit of Lynch he was willing to give, though—if the way Kavinsky was with his friends was any indication—he wanted all of Ronan and that….Adam knew wouldn’t happen. Ronan liked to be alone too much. He routinely shut people out, shut everyone out—even Gansey, who was closer to him than anyone else in the world. 

Ronan liked what Kavinsky represented. Probably admired him. But when he was faced with Joseph Kavinsky in the flesh and as a genuine person who existed outside of Ronan’s mind, the amity failed and Lynch retreated to a safe distance. 

 

 

 

 

 

Spence was out sick. Whether this was from a genuine illness or just junior-itis getting the better of him, Adam wasn’t sure. All he knew was that it put him in a rather unusual situation for today’s lab. 

“It’s not that I don't trust you,” Betz continued. “But I would feel better if this experiment had two sets of eyes on it. So if you want to buddy with a pair of your classmates—”

“Join us, Parrish!” 

Adam, along with the rest of the class, glanced toward the back of the room. He locked eyes with Kavinsky. K’s expression was rather placid but Adam saw the amusement in his eyes for what it was. 

The rest of the class remained silent. 

Adam turned back to Betz, who shrugged. The thing was in the wake of Kavinsky's request there hadn’t been any other offers extended for lab sharing. Though the choice was Adam's, no one wanted to seem like they were stepping on Joseph Kavinsky's toes. Boys who Adam had told where to find the answer for home work problem number seven or twenty-four in their text book, were suddenly very interested in the sheet of lab instructions Betz had handed out. 

Adam looked over his shoulder and met Kavinsky’s eyes again. 

K grinned, that brilliant cat who got the cream smile. 

Adam turned back, his own lips quirking up at the corners as he scooped up his notebooks, some bit of dark humor at the situation and how he was letting Kavinsky manipulate it. Adam stood, slinging his book bag over his shoulder. 

Not a single other boy would meet his eye. 

He dragged the lab stool down the center aisle; letting the chair grind a loud screech against the bare concrete floor, before it went into a jackhammering bounce that vibrated up Adam's arm. But he wasn’t going to pick the stool up. It wasn't like he was walking to a firing squad, but screw the rest of them for thinking working with Kavinsky was so bad and not even offering to help.

He stopped at Kavinsky's station. K had already pushed himself and Proko down the table leaving a space for Adam next to him, so he dumped his books and sat down. 

K bumped his shoulder. 

Adam bumped him back.

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey, Parrish,” Swan greeted, catching up with him as Adam weaved his way through the lunch tables. 

“Hey.”

“Scored the biggest piece, huh?” Swan said looking at Adam’s plate. When Adam had reached the head of the quiche line, he had asked the lady who was dishing it out if he could have that one piece in front specifically and because she liked him—he was polite and a _local_ —had obliged. Adam looked at Swan’s plate. He had gone for the pork chops. 

“Yep, lucky me,” Adam said. He had work directly after school and wouldn’t be able to grab something else to eat till ….well, this slice of quiche was going to have to hold him over for a while. “What’s up?”

Swan was a decent guy, but he wasn’t nice enough to come over to talk to Adam just for the heck of it—not when his friends were all right over there, at least. 

“I am to personally convey you over to our table for the delivery of a special message.”

Adam glanced at him, “Did K tell you to say that?”

“No,” Swan laughed. “But he does want to give you something. C’mon.”

Swan moved slightly ahead, guiding them over to K’s table, not that they were far from it.

Swan was academically minded enough that he and Adam talking wasn’t some big thing, but Adam going to Joey K’s lunch table willingly, even if it were just for a minute was bound to set the gossips off. Though Adam was aware of their existence he was more concerned about Gansey. Adam’s eyes scanned the caf and found Gansey and Ronan at their table as usual. It was too much to hope that Gansey wouldn’t look around the cafeteria and see him in front of the pack’s table in the next two minutes. _He would have to think of some excuse._ Adam didn’t especially like outright lying to Gansey, but his friend was very un- _giving_ when it came to K. Nothing he did was of pure honest intention. 

Swan took a seat and though there was a chair open across from Kavinsky Adam remained standing. He could feel the eyes of the boys at the surrounding tables glance at him, move away, and then look back and stick. Adam Parrish wasn’t supposed to be called before Joseph Kavinsky’s lunch table—and if he was, he wasn’t supposed to _go_.

Adam didn’t take the seat, but held on to his tray and bottle of orange juice. “Hey.”

“Hey, babe,” Kavinsky said, because he called everyone he was close to ‘babe.' But the boys at the surrounding tables didn’t know that he and K _were_ close. Adam wondered if they could hear. If the din in the room was just a side-effect of him trying to hear K better while standing or if everyone else had stopped talking to listen in. 

“What’s up?”

“Proko, give my man the envelope,” Kavinsky said, his eyes not leaving Adam’s for a second. 

It was like this sometimes when their eyes connected. Not a current of their physical relationship, but a jolt of understanding that somehow ran deeper, beyond the sexual. Adam didn’t understand it. He couldn’t account for it either. But sometimes in class or across the quad or during an afternoon with K’s friends, their eyes would meet and a shock would run through him. 

Not at the fact that K had seen too much and now knew more of him than Adam would like. More like because of that he was sure K saw something in him none of the rest of them did, not even Gansey. Adam actually had the sense that K _got_ him. 

It was absurd, ridiculous even, that someone like Kavinsky _could_. 

Joseph Kavinsky, who torched his car for kicks one night and then bought the exact same model the next day. Kavinsky, who could be an annoying shit when he wanted to be, which was _usually_. Kavinsky, who still even though he was balling Adam never missed an opportunity to imply that Gansey and Lynch were in some kinky dom/sub relationship. K, who was totally crass and would sometimes inexcusably mention Adam being involved in that too. Kavinsky, who traded a seemingly endless supply of drugs and fake papers for money. Kavinsky, who also cared very deeply for his friends, drew them all house pride tattoos, and had their backs. K, who would have his contacts smuggle swords into the country for them, Adam assumed. K, who hadn’t spoken a word of what he and Adam had been doing to anyone. K who was such an open book. K, who’s past was more violent than even Adam’s own. 

Maybe it wasn’t so crazy. 

Their eyes would meet and a shock would run through Adam, because K got him and what _was_ crazy—definitely, one hundred percent crazy—was that Adam _liked_ it. 

Finally K’s eyes flicked down to the envelope.

Adam set the bottle of juice on the table and reached to take it from Proko. “What’s this?”

“Details,” Proko said. 

“Details for what?”

“Our end of the year bash,” K said expansively, leaning back, dropping his arms onto the backs of each chair beside him. 

“Paper invites,” Adam mused. He took a closer glance at the envelope in his hands. He wasn’t going to open it here though. “Pretty retro...do you expect me to RSVP?”

Kavinsky shrugged. 

“Don’t loose that,” Morris said stepping up beside him and sliding the seat that Adam had been standing in front of to the side before plopping down in it. 

“I loose it and what? You guys won’t let me in if I don’t have it?”

“We’ll let you in, Parrish,” Swan said through what essentially was a good natured sigh. 

“Of course we will,” K underlined and he flicked his eyes to Jiang, who snorted and gave K a _look_.

“But if someone else picked that up?” Proko asked.

“Didn’t realize security was that tight,” Adam said slipping the invite into the inside pocket of his blazer. 

“Don’t want to have to deal with uninvited guests,” Jiang explained.

“They tend to harsh our vibe,” Skov said, around his sandwich.

“Is there someone in particular I should be guarding this invitation from?” Adam asked, trying to meet Jiang’s eye. “Or is it just the principle?”

“You don’t know?” Skov asked, incredulous and nearly disparaging. 

“...I have an idea.”

“Just don’t give out the details and no plus one’s, alright?” Proko asked. “Pretty simple.”

Adam nodded slowly. 

“You coming then?” Morris asked, looking up at him. Adam picked up his bottle of juice.

“I have work till 9:30 that night,” Adam admitted. “ _Maybe_. If I feel up to it after...”

“Don’t worry about that,” Morris said. “Our parties go _late_.”

“I’ll think about it,” Adam allowed, meeting K’s eyes again. 

“You do that,” Skov said. 

K winked at him.

 

 

 

 

 

“Was he giving you shit because of the beef we’ve got going?” Ronan asked, when Adam set his lunch down at their table. 

“Yeah, you’re the center of his entire world,” Adam delivered in his most deadpan.

“Tch, asshole,” Ronan grumbled. 

“What was that there Prokopenko handed you?” Gansey asked, nodding to Adam’s blazer.

“His lab notes,” Adam said. _Not true_ , but he wasn’t about to tell them he was probably going to K’s end of the year bash or more importantly why he was even invited in the first place. “We were partners in chemistry last Friday.”

“You were lab partners with him and Kavinsky?” Ronan put together, because ninety-nine percent of the time Proko was at school so was Kavinsky. They almost always skipped together and there was no way they would have split up

“Spence was out sick and Betz didn’t want me flying solo.”

“My condolences,” Gansey muttered and as predicted the subject was dropped entirely. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam stumbled downstairs to find Rasmussen already at the toaster. 

The night before there hadn’t been many tickets at the garage and when Boyd sent him home early, Adam biked not for St. Agnes but K’s house. It had been a slow week—revision revision revision, though two of his classes had mercifully allowed them to get their finals out of the way. 

Adam had known K was having his friends over this time and when Adam let himself in, he found them down in the basement. Skov and Morris gave him a bizarrely enthusiastic greeting. Adam didn’t know when he had earned that kind of excitement in their minds, but Kavinsky smiled at him so genuinely something in Adam’s gut had twisted uncomfortably. Matty got up from his seat next to K and Adam took his place. He thought when Kavinsky reached for him that he was going to just give Adam that odd little cursory kiss K had been greeting him with lately, but instead of pulling back after a second Kavinsky pushed closer and brushed his tongue against Adam’s lower lip. 

Adam sort of regretted letting K’s tongue in his mouth when the rest of the pack started catcalling them. Adam actually regretted dropping by at all and he pulled back, cheeks burning, but K stayed him with a hand on his neck, thumb resting on the bruise he kept reinscribing.

After the pack had tuckered themselves out with endless rounds of _Forsa_ and a break for making ice cream cookie sandwiches, Kavinsky turned on _Adult Swim_ and everyone mellowed out or dozed off. Skov and Jiang stepped out to smoke, while Adam and K slipped upstairs.  

But today, down in the kitchen on their final Saturday morning of the school year, Rasmussen was the only other boy up. He’d mentioned last night how he had to show up for Hunt Club one final time and Adam needed to make an appearance at Weights. 

Matty nodded to Adam and slid two more slices in the toaster. Then he pulled out a cube of butter and something called Vegemite. Adam watched curious as Matty spread a thin layer of the dark brown jelly over his toast and the butter he'd already added. Matty hadn’t missed Adam’s curiosity and pushed the Vegemite jar across the counter to him.

Adam picked it up and sniffed at the contents. He set it down abruptly. “I’ll pass.”

Matty laughed. “Your loss, mate.”

They ate in silence. Many of Ag’s clubs and phys ed classes met at odd times in the evenings or on weekends as a way to instill structure in the lives of the boys who stayed in the dorms. Everything scheduled on the weekends was meeting for the last time this school year today and tomorrow, because all the boys who weren’t staying on during the summer had to be out of the dorms by the following weekend. Most of the teachers who sponsored them knew a good handful of students would dip, because they wanted or needed every minute to revise. Adam however had already missed enough class and extracurriculars to hide his bruises when he had still been living with his dad. He didn’t need another black mark by his name.

“C’mon, I'll give you a lift to Ag.”

Since it was just Weights and Adam didn’t really need to go home and change, he accepted. 

 

 

 

 

 

In many ways Harold Rasmussen was an outlier to K’s group. He was a big boned boy. The only one of them with a head of fiery orange curls and, in direct contrast to K’s vampiric paleness, was tan and covered in freckles. Adam wasn’t sure how he’d got the nick-name Matty, the pack used it so exclusively, Adam who had barely spent any time with them, had started thinking of him that way. 

Of the pack, Rasmussen, Jiang and Morris were the only actual imports. Everyone knew Morris was French-Algerian and Jiang’s family was from Hong Kong, but you wouldn’t know Matty’s passport was Australian unless he opened his mouth. Which unlike the rest of K’s friends was rare. He was a thoughtful boy, contributing only occasionally to the pack’s group discussions. He preferred to have all the facts before he committed to an opinion; a characteristic that he might have learned in Debate or inclined him to it to begin with. Matty was only slightly better when you got him alone.

The difference seemed to be epitomized by the fact he drove a Land Rover; shockingly unsuitable for a group who enjoyed racing as much as the pack. It was however perfect for carting Adam’s bike around though.

Matty pulled into the far parking lot by the gymnasium and collection of sheds. It wasn't a big lot, meant really only as a place for buses to idle for visiting sports teams or away games, and except for the instructor places, it was first come first serve. Sports which had been introduced to Ag after the turn of the 20th century all had new equipment sheds/locker rooms built, since the established locker rooms were already specifically allocated. The wealthy people who sent their sons to Ag, already had purchased their children all the special equipment—lacrosse sticks engraved with their names and full sets of golf clubs—for whatever activity. There was simply too much stuff to try and just cram anywhere, not for the tuition these people were paying.

“Walk with me?” Rasmussen asked, once Adam chained his bike.

Saturday morning Hunt Club met an entire hour before Weights. That was a good half hour before Adam's instructor would even be there to unlock the weight room doors. Adam had just planned on hunkering down in the hall outside the locker room and doing some revision, but he never had been in the Hunt Club's Lodge or so they called it. It was the biggest out building on campus that wasn't a classroom and Adam was curious despite himself.

He nodded and followed Rasmussen, who led them along the winding path to the Lodge.

Matty put his shoulder into opening the wood door with a grunt. He pushed through to a little antechamber full of maps and nature books. The place was musty and it showed it's age as one of the original buildings on campus with the creaking, scuffed wood floors. There were a couple tables where students could planned their assault on the unsuspecting wildlife. But the map the couple of kids already there were looking over was of the Ag Reserve. 

The Aglionby Hunt Club frequently took day trips—sometimes even weekend trips—away from civilization to hunt that most elusive of quarry. However that wasn’t always the case nor was it strictly necessary as there was, in fact, a tract of land that remained largely untamed abutting the back half of Ag campus. It was a slice of nature that cut through Henrietta town and acted as a highway for wildlife, which was never far off considering how closely they were situated to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a proper little forrest and the thick brush was only penetrated by occasional dirt paths and a river. There was much contention over that river. Over the past hundred years, numerous Henrietta mayors had attempted to acquire access to it in order to harness its power and turn it into electricity. They were unilaterally denied this privilege though and, while the Reserve would be prime land if developed, it never was. That was solely because Aglionby owned it. Which, of course, was only a further source of insult and ire of the locals.

Matty disappeared into the back room to grab his gear and an orange vest for Adam, before he returned to the map room and spoke quietly with his instructor. 

It seemed the Hunt Club was going to set up clay pigeons and skeet at half past. Rasmussen could either help or spend the next thirty minutes wandering the Reserve’s paths. Despite his position as one of the Hunt Club’s senior members, it was heavily implied he was allowed to pass on this duty only because he had brought a guest. Adam wondered if this was why he was invited. 

Mists rose off the Ag lawn behind them as they followed the gravel path until it turned into dirt at the edge of the Reserve. Adam was surprised anything wild still came here, sure the animals would have been better at communicating bad news than this hunt to continue. He and Matty walked in silence, winding deeper into the forest. Adam breathed in the morning air deeply. There was something so wonderful—restorative, really—about being out in nature like this.

Abruptly, Matty stepped off the path, eyes ahead, footfalls quiet, and into the tall grass of a small clearing. Adam cautiously followed. Three paces in and the dew was already seeping through to Adam’s socks. He was glad Ag required her boys to bring a pair of designated gym shoes. Adam’s were the same pair he wore to work and kept permanently in his backpack; mostly because the ancient loafers he’d picked up at the Thrifty Save had zero support and would be murder on his feet if he wore them traipsing around the concrete floors of any of his workplaces. 

“How do you feel about K?” Matty asked, stopping

“What do you mean ‘how do I feel about K?’” 

“Just what I said. How do you feel about him?”

Adam stared at Matty blankly.

“Because he likes you,” Rasmussen continued. He wasn’t looking at Adam, hadn’t really since they left the Lodge. Now he was doing something with his gun.

“He likes a lot of people,” Adam pointed out. “You. His clients.”

“Of course he likes me. I am one of his closest friends,” Matty said. “I wouldn't go so far as to say he likes his clients though. That affability... he puts it on just to make them feel better. I wouldn’t say he _likes_ them.”

Adam said nothing.

“He likes you, though, Parrish.”

“He likes Ronan more,” Adam said, only avoiding a bitter edge by conscious effort. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it or why, at this point, it even mattered.

“Ronan Lynch is a pipe dream and K knows it,” Matty said, sliding a bullet in the chamber. “You on the other hand....You're good for him. You push him to come to classes and to stay out of trouble outside of them. But Ronan—”

“Is the one who he'll do crazy stuff to get his attention for.”

“Yeah,” Matty said, looking down. “It worries me.”

Adam shrugged.

“You and I both know,” Matty continued. “Anything he does for Lynch is a fruitless effort that will result in nothing but K getting hurt.”

“Kavinsky can make his own decisions.”

“And he will,” Rasmussen said, watching a bird in a tree about thirty yards away. Adam looked closer. It was actually a _pair_ of pheasants. “All I'm saying is you are holding more cards than you think.”

“When did one of them become ‘we should start dating?’”

“It's always been there, Adam,” Matty said with a roll of his shoulders. He drew down his ear protection. “You just haven't been looking at it right.”

He raised the gun and sighted it in a fluid motion. Adam just barely had time to yank his own ear muffs down before Rasmussen shot one of the pheasants in the breast. It fell from the tree with a thump.

The unharmed bird took off in a flurry of wingbeats.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam slid his bike into the back of K’s evo before Kavinsky had much of a chance to come and help. He had enough practice to have getting his bike in the tight space down to an art. He snapped the trunk closed and went around to the passenger door.

Tonight’s meeting was a last minute decision. Kavinsky had called him towards the end of his shift at the warehouse to ask if he wanted to meet up after. Earlier neither of them had really wanted to commit because K was busy with prep for his grad party the following evening and Adam wasn’t sure how tired he would be after a day of tests and a night of monotonously throwing freight and stacking boards. 

But when K called, Adam had told him what time he was scheduled off. He was feeling pretty energized. They only had one half day of school left of junior year and tomorrow morning was really just a technicality. 

The moment after Adam slid into the passenger seat of the evo, Kavinsky tossed something in his lap.

“What is this?” Adam asked, frowning. He didn’t move to take it.  

“Congrats on three years of standing tall to the pressure.”

“I—what?”

“You earned that,” Kavinsky said, nodding to Adam’s lap as he pulled away from the curb.

“What does that mean?” Adam demanded. It had been a while since Adam had felt his hackles rise when it was just him and K, but this did it. “What do you know about it?”

“You're trailer trash,” K said. “I'm Jersey trash.”

“Slightly different connotations.”

K shrugged.

Adam looked at the smart phone in his lap. 

K had a point. But Adam had one as well. There was a specific reason they weren’t treated the same; patronized with the same reluctant humoring tolerance. It wasn’t that K had money exactly because foreign money was fine enough by old boy standards. But new money was not and new foreign money was definitely not. Still most of the Ag boys didn’t actually sneer at K’s Jersey accent behind his back and that was because mob money was _more_ than money. They might be coming from similar distasteful places in their classmates’ books, but K’s family had still given him a five square head start. 

“Did you really think I'd just take this?” Adam asked with a sigh. Not as disgusted now, but of all the people he had thought would try to give him _charity_.... “How many times do you think Gansey has tried to set me up with the same?”

K scoffed. “I know I joke about you all being in some gay three way a lot, but I didn't actually think—”

“Don't do that,” Adam interrupted. “You know it’s not true.”

“So he _hasn't_ tried ‘to set you up with the same’ then?” K asked, fixing him with a severe eye. “Which—by the way, in case you actually wanted to know—was just to fix you up with a phone, so you could get in touch whenever _for_ sex.”

Adam’s eyes snapped up from the phone. 

“Yeah,” K said. “I got that so I wouldn't have to call five different places if I want to get in touch with you _to_ touch you. Since we won't see each other at school every day.”

Adam let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He thought he might laugh. Kavinsky wasn’t going to be able to pull his cutesy note routine, so he’d got Adam a _phone_. “Is sex the only thing you think about?”

“Pretty sure it was you who made it clear that was the only thing you cared about here.”

Whatever mirth that had sparked in Adam’s eyes froze. It wasn’t that Kavinsky had made the comment with any bitterness or resentment. Quite the contrary, his tone had been bland, more ironic than anything else. It wasn’t that K was wrong either. That _was_ all Adam cared about. So why did having it stated explicitly like that bother him?

“This,” Adam said, holding up the phone, “is just about sex then?”

“What do you think?”

“I don't know,” Adam said. “That's why I asked.”

“Tack it up to my laziness, babe.”

Adam pressed the power button. If there was really a chance Adam would be seeing less of Kavinsky over the summer—especially if it was simply because K was tired of calling four different numbers in order to get a hold of him—Adam could take the phone. This was not charity. Obviously, a phone would be useful, but Adam didn’t _need_ it. If Kavinsky was giving him a phone to talk with _him_ because he was lazy, it wouldn’t matter if Kavinsky canceled Adam’s line when he got bored. 

Adam considered Gansey’s reaction and wondered if he was talking himself around semantics. But Gansey always offered Adam a line on his plan out of a desire to help Adam pull himself out of the dirt, so actually getting in touch with Adam was a happy by-product, because Gansey didn’t use his phone all that much. In fact, Adam knew that Gansey would have preferred to have been born in a time before cell-phones. Kavinsky was the exact opposite. He was always on his phone, either looking up something or messaging his friends. Adam thought that might even be the main form of communication with his mother and they lived in the same house. 

It _was_ different, Adam decided. Even if it wasn’t, Adam wouldn’t risk the release he got when he was alone with Kavinsky. It made him feel like a real teenager. Nearly like what it felt to look for Glendower before April, when the stakes were raised impossibly high and he had disappointed Gansey, putting their friendship on ice.

“I don't expect anything from you,” Kavinsky said. He paused and Adam felt the portent of more so he waited. “I mean I won't lie and say that wasn't my first priority. But if you’re not feeling it...”

“So...” Adam wondered what Kavinsky’s second and third priorities were. It sounded like he had some. “This is purely for booty-calls.”

“I wish you wouldn't call it that,” K groaned. “That’s so, eh...fucking, _antiquated_ , man.”

“Fuckbuddy calls...?” Adam suggested.

Kavinsky huffed a laugh and gave an elaborate shrug, which Adam took to mean ‘whatever floats your boat’ before he said, “Use it however you want: long distance for hours, crank call the queen of England. Stream the entire _Sopranos_ in hi-def. Use it as a fuckin’ paperweight. I don’t give a fuck, but yes, _Hotline Bling_ , that was my intention.”

 

 

 

 

 

When the final bell of class for junior year rang, Adam felt liberated. 

He loved school. He actually loved learning, Ag’s curriculum, the old halls of the scattered buildings that made up the campus, and, of course, the feeling of pulling on his suit jacket with the Aglionby raven emblem stitched on the breast pocket. Despite all that there was something exhausting about having to be faced with everything he wanted on a daily basis and have it still be so far out of reach. Nine months was a long time to rub elbows with the, often conceited, offspring of the rich and well connected; boys who had never worked a day in their lives, and Adam was honestly looking forward to the break. 

This year in particular Adam felt lucky to have made it to the end at all. He’d moved out of his family’s trailer, he’d _pressed charges_ against his own father, he’d woken a ley line, and started a mutually beneficial fuckbuddy relationship with _Joseph Kavinsky_ of all people, and that was all with in the last two months. They wouldn’t get their grades for another week and a half, but Adam was tentatively feeling proud. Even the closing shift he was working that evening hardly dampened his mood. Adam was one step closer to being out of here. 

Every day he worked towards leaving Henrietta, whether at Ag or one of his three jobs. Everything he did, it all contributed. Even the search for Glendower brought him closer— _if he could just get that favor_...In the meantime, Adam tried to stack his cards so his future would never be like his past. So that he could make something of himself. Getting shut of this place was the next real step. 

Adam only had one year left of living in Henrietta. 

Over lunch, when Gansey had asked him what he was going to do with his first night of summer freedom, Adam had given him a half truth. He had a shift at Boyd’s, that was true. But Boyd’s closed at 9:30. Gansey probably thought he would turn in by ten and the Adam Gansey knew from before May, likely would have, but three and a half weeks of fucking Kavinsky on the sly had caused a shuffle in Adam’s priorities. True after all the last minute cramming and finals, Adam wanted to sleep. It was only the prospect of getting laid that caused Adam to extend his evening to include the pack’s grad party rather than just heading back to his room. 

Adam wasn’t going to tell Gansey that though. Gansey, he was sure, had wanted to celebrate, but it wouldn’t be at Kavinsky’s rave. Adam wouldn’t have suggested it even if he hadn’t received explicit instructions to keep it hush hush. It didn't really matter. Friday morning he and Gansey would be driving up to D.C. together for a bi-partisan political soiree. Adam had agreed to go, even though he wasn’t sure what the point of it was. Gansey couldn’t really give him more of an explanation of it’s purpose either, other than networking and _funding_. Adam had requested all Friday and Saturday off and he was sure they would celebrate then. 

He felt pretty good. Just this summer and one more year of Ag to go. Even the screaming woman in the mirror he'd seen the afternoon before in his room at St Agnes—though he'd been thoroughly freaked out at the time—wasn't putting a damper on his mood. Gansey seemed to think that Adam was either so tired he had hallucinated her or possibly...could it be Cabeswater? 

Adam doubted it was the first suggestion and he didn’t understand how it could be the second. He wanted a second opinion, but he wasn't about to ask K. If Adam did Kavinsky'd probably tell him he just needed to come to the party and _let go_. Adam was on his way. 

He pulled out his new phone. 

Regardless of Kavinsky's claim that the phone was purely for plans to hook up, within the first 12 hours of giving it to Adam he had already texted him wondering how he'd felt he did on the bio final exam, some snarky aside about the dean during his summer send off speech, followed by five texts asking if he was coming to the grad party, three of which came after Adam had clocked on for his evening shift. 

He had felt each come in with the buzz—he’d had to foresight to put the thing on vibrate at least. Even s when he finally stepped off the floor for his first break of the night, Adam was at the point where he was so annoyed he texted back a simple 'yes now fuck off.’ 

To which, K had responded by sending him a picture of Swan on a makeshift stage. Adam had squinted at the image for several seconds trying to decipher its contents. It probably had something to do with the line at the bottom of his invitation that read _“With a special performance from Madam Swansy and her girls! Including a surprise guest!”_

The picture was of Swan, still in his clothes from school, and aside from the lights the place was clearly empty. Adam assumed they must be doing some kind of sound check. 

He was vaguely aware Kavinsky’s crew had been operating on a tight time table. There was a celebratory dinner with Morris and Matty’s families, and the actual graduation—Adam knew the whole pack would be there to watch them walk—before the party really kicked off. It should be in full swing now. 

_does this party of yours have bike parking?_

This was a pertinent question. Adam wasn't taking chances. The second-hand shop in town had nearly a twenty percent mark up on what the bikes they had were actually worth. Adam did not have the money to buy another and he wasn’t about to let his bike get stolen through negligence. 

By the time Adam got to the street where the party was, Kavinsky had replied. 

_put it in the back of my car_  
_should unlock for you_

_your car is just gonna magically unlock when I get there?_

_yep_

Adam tried to come up with something snarky to send back as he walked his bike up to the evo, but when he was within four feet, he heard the gears in the driver's door unlock. Usually this kind of tech only worked when the fob was within range. Adam didn't have K's fob. He had never even touched K’s fob.

Adam leaned in to the driver's side, popping the trunk and unlocking the two back doors. He turned the conundrum over in his head as he flipped the back seats down and somehow wrangled the bike inside the car without K pulling and guiding the front wheel in from the middle. 

When the answer came to him, it was too easy. Kavinsky must have put something in the phone. Maybe there was an app for that. 

 

 

 

 

 

The combination of rich boys and lack of an authoritarian figure to keep them in line never was a good set-up in Adam's opinion. 

Parties were not his scene. They weren’t Gansey’s either. He and Gansey had made this happy discovery early and it had only worked to further cement their growing friendship. Gansey’s distaste for them was polite. He claimed to understand the need to cut loose, but he didn’t really. Not those kind of parties. Definitely not the way K’s parties generally went. 

Adam just never saw much of a point in making time for them. This estimation was not given without first hand experience, though he had really only ever been to two. Both had been during the first month of his freshman year at Ag, when he had still cared about fitting in and Caleb, his former first...well, Adam would be forced to call him a friend at Aglionby, had wanted him to come. This was before he'd lost his temper and done something stupid.

Actually, one of those parties had been K's; which was also part of the reason Adam had never felt like he was really missing out when he prioritized work over what a good number of Ag boys spent most of their week looking forward to. During those first months Joey K was still making a name for himself. He had seen Kavinsky that night—though at a distance. It hadn’t even been that late and Kavinsky was already looking festive with an Ag tie wrapped around his head like a bandana. He was chatting with some guys and there was an awful lot of hand slapping going on. It was done with an ironical stageyness that did little to dissuade a suspected drug deal was in progress. 

The party Adam had gone to had been pretty ugly and it hadn’t even been the worst. The following night—because this was a time when Joey K would hold a party back to back, parties night after night after night—was the one that would stick in the minds of those born and bred in Henrietta. K’s drugs had been too strong and that night people had passed out, blacked-out, got in situations they wouldn’t have put themselves in otherwise. The next day there were complaints. 

Four senior girls—honor roll students, no less—had come forward with assault allegations and worse. Henrietta was a sleepy town. Spousal abuse was one thing; something that existed, unspeakable, in the cracks and margins, and a girl might have a problem with unwanted attention from the odd guy, sometimes it went further. But not like this.

The physical evidence had been irrefutable. These girls were all well liked, admired and appreciated by their community—not that that really mattered, no one should have to go through that, but it made more of an impression on people. And there were four of them; battered, bruised, and shaken. _Four._ Nothing even close to that scale had happened in decades. It had been a bad scandal. 

When the cops came through, Kavinsky had said he hadn’t known anything about any of that. Adam was inclined to believe him. Attendees had been pretty unanimous about what Kavinsky and his friends had been doing that night. 

It was actually typical Kavinsky, freshman year edition. He had gone car surfing after playing a game called ‘fire hockey.’ Adam didn’t think Kavinsky and Co had invented the game. It seemed like the type of thing Skov would find online and send to the pack with a demand of ‘LET’S TRY THIS!’ In fact, having spent some time in Skov’s presence over the last couple weeks Adam would bet money that was exactly what had happened and Kavinsky in those days had been up for anything. It had probably seemed like a good laugh. 

So this sport had its first and only match in Henrietta, but the pack’s antics—Kavinsky’s antics—were great fun to relate and Adam had heard it twice by Monday; a rare piece of levity when everyone was concerned for the girls. 

The gos was Kavinsky was playing some mid-position. He had been running down court, so one of his team-mates could pass him the fireball and he could try to score. Instead of passing to him with a hockey style swing, which should have sent the ball shooting across the pitch at ankle level, whoever hit the ball had used a golf stroke. Somehow they must have angled the flat of their stick so that it went under the burning ball and gave it lift. The fireball arced up, shooting down the pitch and somehow smacked the top back corner of Kavinsky’s running head. Thankfully the ball had hit him with such force that it literally bounced off, but not before catching some of his hair on fire. To hear anyone tell it, Kavinsky’s whole head lit up. Of course, that wasn’t what had really happened. His hair caught immediately but, though it spread steadily, the fire was not as fast as one might have imagined. There had been enough time for Swan and Morris to rush to K’s aid and smother it out.

Kavinsky didn’t even bother to take a trip to the hospital after—in fact if Adam was to have believed anyone who told the story K thought it was hilarious; he must have been high as a kite. The following week at school Kavinsky had kept a red cap firmly on his head though. The remains of his singed hair was not a pretty sight.

It hadn’t been Kavinsky’s finest moment and one that might have otherwise earned him a snide nickname, if not for the allusion of his last name and his father being in a line of business that involved fitting individuals who annoyed him with concrete shoes and dropping them in the Chelsea Harbor.

So Kavinsky and his pack had a pretty solid alibi. K probably hadn’t known anything about what was happening in the dark corners of his party, but it had happened and likely had been facilitated by the drugs or booze Kavinsky had made available to his guests. It had resulted in only more fodder for the locals to hate those Raven Boys. Adam wouldn’t forget the way his father’s lips curled in disgust that any son of his would dare want to be friends with boys like that. 

 

 

 

 

 

The building wasn’t quite vibrating with every bass note of music, but only just. When Adam had read the address of an empty warehouse on the outskirts of town in the invitation, he hadn’t been inspired with confidence. But standing on the curb now, he could agree this was the place to hold a rave. No doubt Kavinsky still had to pay off some of the police force to keep them from coming out here and shutting down the party on a noise complaint. 

He made it past the smokers clouding the main entrance with their exhalations. People were milling around in the first room. Really there was nothing of interest here, aside from ten rented arcade games and about five beautiful girls wall-flowering. If Adam had come here at his own behest he might have thought about going over to talk to them. As he hadn’t, he turned left through a huge doorway to where the real festivities seemed to be taking place.

Adam hadn’t been to one of these parties in three years, but K had clearly upped his game. 

The room was huge and completely decked out with lights and speakers. The center of the room had become a dance floor. There was the stage off against one wall. It was empty save a blonde boy hunched over a table of electronics. Skov was Kavinsky’s resident DJ and his taste was legendarily good. Adam had heard he could command a room with it and whatever he was spinning now had the floor swarmed with dancing bodies. It was a pretty nice set up. Professional. Adam wondered if all of K's parties looked like this and how much of a discount Party Mart gave him considering how often he threw them.  

The walls had this kind of glowing graffiti all the way up to the vaulted ceiling. Somehow it seemed almost to be pulsating with the beat of the music, but it was probably just the walls vibrating. It was a weird trick that was probably downright disturbing if a person happened to catch sight of it while high.

Bordering the room were these booths. There were maybe twelve of them lining of the walls. _Photo booths?_ Adam realized, delighted. It was a neat idea and apparently everyone else thought so too, because all were filled with friends and lovers capturing the spirit of the evening; little curtains pulled shut against the lines waiting outside of them.

Though the space was loud and bustling, it was ultimately dim enough to be anonymous. Identities were difficult to make out. Adam reckoned a majority of Ag and Henrietta High had turned out, though the number of partiers was easily double of both put together. Everyone knew K's parties drew out of towners, but this was more than Adam would have expected.

Adam wondered if K had sold all the drugs he’d procured for this evening. 

The week before Kavinsky had asked to meet later than normal. He was usually chill with Adam dropping by whenever, but not that day. He'd even told Adam why point blank; he had to go pick up the party favors, as K called them. 

“That's gonna take all day?” Adam wondered. He didn't really care; but the later they met, the later Adam would be up and he had his finals to think of. “They don't come to you?”

Kavinsky had stared at his fish tank for several seconds, then turned to Adam and asked quite frankly, “Would you want anything that could get me _that_ coming around here?”

Adam hadn’t had anything to say to that. 

The next night they met, later than usual, there had been half a dozen bags of little multi-colored pills just clustered on top of the medium height bookcase nearest to the door, as if K didn't need to hide what was one hundred grand worth of drugs from anybody. Adam knew it was a hundred grand because he'd asked and K had told him that’s how much he'd make if he sold them all. 

It was pretty obvious those party favors had all been doled out. The party was getting messy, but nobody seemed to care, clearly enjoying this land of debauchery. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam moved through the party, past the empty kegs and the _emptying_ kegs, skirting the space between the dance floor and the darkness on the other side of the photo booths—Adam wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was happening back there. He was taking it all in but also, kind of seriously looking for K.

Then he spotted him. White shades pushed high in his dark hair and moving along the opposite side of the room. Only through the gaps of people was Adam able to follow his progress and see he was wearing a dark purple floral Hawaiian shirt, open exposing his slight chest, and a teal batik sarong. Adam wondered if this was a themed party and everyone else missed the message or if that was to do with Swan’s performance. 

Kavinsky's eyes were scanning, but really he needed to get some vantage to really take stock of the room. Adam glanced to the rafters high above and the graffiti which was glowing there as well. This must have just been a store room because there wasn’t even a catwalk. He wondered how the pack had spray-painted that high up there. When Adam glanced to where he’d last seen K, he wasn't there anymore. Adam cast his gaze wide and wild, trying to catch sight of him again. 

Then he spotted K shouldering his way in Adam’s direction, cutting across a corner of the dance floor. As he walked through a throng of revelers, they recognized him and he was enthusiastically thanked and complimented, Adam assumed. Dudes fist bumped him and girls threw their arms around him, planting kisses on his cheeks. This was interesting. Adam knew Gansey’s perspective on Kavinsky was violently skewed. Most of Ag liked K more than tolerated him—though they might have been a bit wary of his family connections and he would never be one of them because of that. Joey K _was_ still well liked. But Adam hadn’t realized the exact depth of feeling the rest of Henrietta felt toward him. 

It was odd to see such a naked display of gratitude and admiration for Joey K. They loved him for the drugs and parties he provided. Adam knew why. Henrietta would have been boring as hell without him. 

Kavinsky finally broke away and glanced around to reorient himself. He could have been looking for a client, one of his friends, anyone really, but Adam got the sense that K was looking for _him_. That feeling solidified when K’s eyes met his.

K crossed the remaining space between them and pulled Adam in to the pack’s half hand-clasp, half hug. Adam returned it; not at all surprised when K bopped up on his tip-toes to give him a quick kiss, though Adam’s eyes flicked around to see if anyone was watching them.

“Glad you came.”

Close-up Adam could see Kavinsky was wearing makeup. The dark semi-circles that lived under his eyes had disappeared, he had eyeshadow on and his cheeks were cherry blossom pink. But what held Adam's attention was the lipstick. Even in this dark space, he could tell it was bright blood red; a color that if Adam's mother had seen on another woman would have lead her to speculating how exactly that girl made her money. Never _calling_ her a whore, but implying it. 

Any lingering reservations he had about being here tonight were lost. Adam was not fond of self delusion. Even if he couldn't figure himself out, which was often the case, he didn't like pretending he had. He always had his goals to guide him and usually that was enough, but Kavinsky...even though he didn't fit in to Adam’s plans at all. It didn’t matter. Adam didn’t care. 

He knew what he wanted tonight.

Adam wanted Kavinsky’s attention. All of it. Here and now. Or at least he wanted his attention for the rest of the night until he and Kavinsky left together. 

It was unrealistic. Expecting K to personally entertain him in the midst of one of his biggest parties of the year seemed a bit much. It likely wasn't what Kavinsky had planned either. Adam wasn't sure what he would do if K had merely invited him to... invite him.

“I have to show you something,” K said, an excited grin spreading across his face.

“Is it two tickets to Hawaii?” Adam asked, wanting some explanation for K’s island attire. 

“No, I was a back up dancer for Swan’s performance,” K explained. “Though I _could_ make arrangements, if you get a few days off work,” K added giving Adam an appraising _look_. “Or maybe someplace closer to home? Morris’ aunt has a nice place in Key West.”

Adam ignored this. “What about this performance?”

“Madame Swansea sung ‘[Border](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Yuxh5IkZY)’ and then ‘Anpanman,’” K expounded, as he produced his phone somewhere out of the folds of his sarong.

“Gotta love BTS.” Adam had discovered that was who had been aggressively rapping the night K first gave him a blowjob. Kavinsky’d had the k-pop group’s latest album on repeat in his car for the past two weeks every time he picked him up. Adam couldn’t deny they had grown on him.

“Oh yeah, babe,” K said with a wide grin as he tapped into a recording. Adam looked down at the tiny screen K was holding out between them.

Indeed, he saw Swan dolled to the nines in drag.

Adam had never seen anyone dressed in drag in real life. Whoever was filming had zoomed in on the lead, she had a huge lavender afro wig on, a purple sequin halter top with a matching sparkly pencil skirt over small white fish net tights and silver satin peekaboo-toe pumps.

The camera zoomed out to capture the full stage. Swansy was lip-synching along with the first song. Adam was pretty sure he hadn’t heard it before. He would have to make K play it for him some other time when he could actually _hear_ the music. On the screen, Swan was playing to the crowd while her girls were executing some choreographed dance behind her.

Swan clearly took drag from a hobby to an art form because Madame Swansy was flawless. The same could not necessarily be said for her back-up dancers. Though the pack too were all in drag, the theme was incongruous. They looked more like The Village People than an actual ensemble as none of them had matching costumes. 

The stage went dark. 

“If you are all being her back up dancers, then who was filming this?”

“Jiang.”

K stepped closer.

A spotlight came on above Madam Swansy and Swan, a consummate actor, was looking forlorn. Adam could almost hear the call at the beginning of the BTS song.

_[“Waiting for your Anpanman! Waiting for your Anpanman!”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWVtB0ZNn0w) _

The rest of the stage lights came on and the pack was revealed to be crouching all around Swansy. The song started in earnest and the pack spun into a flurry of movement. The choreography for this song was faster and more complicated. The girls—and yeah, Adam could see it was just K, Morris, Skov, and Proko—were dancing on and off stage rapidly, clustering around Swansy, dancing, and then dispersing until...

“Is that _Ryang_?”

“Yep.”

Jonathan Ryang, the ‘surprise guest’ who wasn’t really a surprise, entered stage right and struck his own super hero pose. He and Swan had been a thing for over a year. Ryang had lost his shiny black boxy frames and trim leather jacket in favor of a mask and cape. There was a huge ‘A’ emblazoned on his chest. The song continued Ryang and Swansy alternatively taking center stage as the girls huddled around posing, one arm curled displaying biceps while the other arm was thrust skyward.

At the end, Ryang kissed Swansy. It was actually really cute.

There was however one other notable discrepancy that Adam was interested in. “Do you make a habit of loosing your boobs?”

The Kavinsky in the video looked the same except for the black bra he had on under his open shirt. It supported some not very impressive cleavage, but standing next to Adam now, K, of course, had none to speak of.

K gave him an arch look. “Considering how much I like cock and definitely _am_ a guy, boobs are not an, uh... appendage I am particularly attached to, no.”

Adam felt his lips tug up. _He could have guessed that._ Though the significance K put on _being a guy_ indicated that he knew and cared about someone who was _not_. Adam filed that away for a later consideration. 

Trans identities weren’t really addressed in the Ag sex ed curriculum. Certain left and forward thinking students had brought the subject up in the Q & A portion of the class, but the health instructor wasn’t too knowledgable on much beyond anatomy and straight relations. Not surprising given the school didn’t even have a campus sponsored chapter of GSA. Aglionby was rather conservative in political leanings. Gansey’s mom was a prime example. Fiscally conservative, socially progressive. Supposedly. That was what she was described as anyway, but from Adam’s perspective that just meant conservative with a middling stance on issues of human rights; siding with the safe, white, affluent gay couple and their right to marry, while ignoring the people who genuinely needed help leveling the playing field in order to _live_. Mrs. Gansey was a nice enough person, but it was all lip-service and Adam hated it.

A couple brushed by them quickly, her long hair covering the phone screen for a moment and then gone.

Adam was abruptly reminded of where they were. Who they were supposed to be.

K still had his hand on Adam’s wrist. He was standing in Adam's space, flicking through some other pictures in his camera roll. The soft fabric of K's Hawaiian shirt brushed the bare skin of Adam’s arm. 

It felt dangerous.

It had been a while since Adam had felt this exposed. Of course, the last time had been with Kavinsky too, but it had only been the two of them that night. Here they were standing together, close and personal in _public_ and not as a joke or a tease. Adam had expected it coming here tonight, in fact that might have been exactly _why_ he came, but it was one thing to imagine it and it was quite another to be in Kavinsky’s space like this.

Adam didn’t want it to end. And he was sure it would, if he couldn’t keep Kavinsky occupied. There were so many people here, so many other distractions. Adam reminded himself of Proko’s demand that he not bring a plus one. But that was Proko being a wingman and Kavinsky was the host of this party. It seemed almost inevitable that he be required to deal with something. Adam didn’t know what he would do if Kavinsky flitted off to sell more drugs or whatever else. 

Skov was thoroughly absorbed with the decks so talking with him was out. Adam had seen Jiang out front smoking, which held some appeal, but Adam still wasn’t sure if Jiang had warmed up to him. Matty was chatting up some gorgeous blonde cheerleader from Hen High. He’d seen Morris, wearing a flower crown and talking with Proko, red solo cups in each of their hands in between one of the photo booths. Swansy wasn’t anywhere, but she was probably mired in adoring fans or making out with her Anpanman. Adam could take a note from Matty’s book and go talk to those girls, but something about that was petty and he didn't _want_ to. 

Kavinsky was gorgeous. Adam had never been able to admit it outside of when he had K on his back, but he was forced to now, so many of Kavinsky’s sharp lines were on display. Painting his full lips like that should have been a crime. K could have anyone at this party and yet he was standing with Adam. He wondered if Kavinsky knew how good he looked. Covertly Adam glanced up to see if other people were looking at them—that was looking at K and trying to figure out who he was with—but he didn’t catch anyone. 

Adam watched K as he vaguely bounced along with the beat and flicked through more pictures of Matty and Morris walking and receiving their diplomas. It had to mean something that K was standing here in the middle of his party just showing Adam pictures of his best friends, like the proud mother of a three year old in her first ballet. 

Adam had to think of a way to keep his attention. K had good rhythm. He had been on cue at least with the beat in the video and Adam was curious if that translated to dancing with a partner. It wouldn’t be anything to just take K’s hand and drag him to the dance floor. 

Adam thought how nice it would be to get K to himself in a crowd of people. Let Kavinsky show off some more, or rather show off Kavinsky. Adam knew that if he took K onto the dance floor he would be hanging off of Adam in a matter of minutes. To finally let go of that stupid worry that they'd be found out and just let whatever was going to happen, happen. It wasn’t like Gansey would be speaking to any of these guys again until summer was over. Ronan wouldn't speak to any of them regardless and neither would Blue; they were oddly suited on that point. Gansey was clearly drawn to a certain type of person. It wasn’t like anyone was really paying attention to them anyway. 

The beat of the music changed abruptly and K did a little fist pump jump. When he was back on the ground he met Adam’s eyes and his ironic brow raise.

[“What?” K asked. “I love this song.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v33pPfjVZIQ)

That decided it. Adam grabbed K's hand and pulled him toward the strobing multicolor spot lights which were swinging back and forth over the dance floor in erratic arcs.

Red.

Orange.

Yellow.

Green

As he and K came to the heart of the dance floor, Adam was struck by the sheer energy. The floor was literally pulsing with the bouncy beat. Even though they had barely moved thirty feet from where they’d been standing, it was hotter out here. The music seemed louder. He didn’t have any choice but to listen closer. Apparently, the rest of the crowd was too far gone to care that the lyrics to the song were incomprehensible aside from one word in the chorus. 

“BAZOOKA!”

Kavinsky was clearly the only one who knew what the singer was saying at all. The fact that he was actually saying every word along with the music and making finger guns at Adam when he wasn’t jump-dancing to the chorus made Adam think it was probably Bulgarian.

Blue.

Purple.

Maroon.

Red.

The entire dance floor was sloppily pre-occupied. Adam couldn’t see anyone watching them, though he did spy Swansy still all dolled up with Ryang, the “A” on his chest reflecting the beam of a blue spotlight up by the base of the stage, dancing with a free arhythm. 

Turning back to Kavinsky he was struck by his trademark shades perched on top of his head. Adam wanted to dance with him, not have some drugged out townie girl begging another happy pill off Joey K. It was unlikely. The revelers were too caught up in their own world to give him any shit. That was apparently a benefit of showing up hours late. Still better safe then sorry. Adam reached up and pulled the white shades from K's hair. They went in K’s shirt pocket.

Skov shifted the beat into something deeper and more grind worthy. K reeled Adam closer by his belt loops, smirking something vicious. Adam couldn’t even think of the last time he danced, not alone, but particularly not with a partner. He thought he might be doing alright, though the way Kavinsky was moving, a slow and wonderful grinding, had him struggling to keep up.

Kavinsky’s hand was hot, as it cupped the back of Adam’s neck. He tilted Adam’s head down to brush their lips together, in what could have been a tease or a testing of the waters. Whichever, it was a preamble to something more intense. 

K’s hand drifted down his back and he ducked his head, breath hot on the crook of Adam’s neck. He reminded himself of the way Kavinsky had been so nonchalant about their other classmates possibly finding out. It was Adam’s call for this to go further here. Adam was the reason they’d kept this on the down-low. Adam thought of all the careful ways they hadn't given away their association during the final weeks of school. It was one thing to partner on a lab or be given an invitation, it was quite another to step out on the dance floor with Kavinsky when he was dressed liked this. 

The red of his lipstick, stark and dark against his pale skin, caught Adam’s eye again.

Adam’s grandmother, Merriell, was the only person Adam had spent much time with who wore lipstick. He remembered the summers he spent at her house as a boy. How they would get ice cold cokes in those classic glass bottles at the feed store on days they went into town. There would be traces of her prim pink lipstick on the straw she drank it out of. Light pink had more of a chance at blending in, but red would be unforgiving if K smudged it at all. It was kind of amazing he hadn’t yet.

Adam had never, not once in the month they had been hooking up wanted to kiss Kavinsky outside of the bedroom. Never had the thought to pull him off into a bathroom stall or get a blowjob out behind the track bleachers crossed his mind, though he thought Kavinsky probably would have been up for it. Of course, Adam didn’t want to get caught. It was never a question of putting school first because obviously it was, but beyond that, Adam actually had never wanted him in that way. Never thought to. Never had the urge to drag Kavinsky to some disused closet at Ag for a quickie. He didn’t even really like it when K kissed him in greeting when he got in his car.

Adam wanted now.

Adam wanted to drag K off to a dark corner and take him apart. But even though this place was full of dark corners. they were all occupied; in every one of Kavinsky’s conveniently place photo-booths there were couples doing just that.

Adam wanted K.

It was two or three songs later Adam gave up the pretense and pressed their mouths together. 

Kavinsky responded so enthusiastically he moaned into Adam’s mouth. That brought Adam back to himself. He tried to remain relaxed and gripped K’s hips harder to cover the change. It wasn’t like this wasn’t something he and K hadn’t done a thousand times. 

No one was looking at them. 

Adam kept his eyes closed. 

No one here cared that he was kissing Kavinsky. No one but K cared that Adam was enjoying the slide of his tongue against K’s. If they did, he didn’t want to know. 

He was kissing Kavinsky in public and Adam was stupidly turned on.

His thumbs slipped under the edge of K’s sarong. With a thrill Adam realized Kavinsky wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Something about that knowledge and his hands on Kavinsky’s bare skin, brought a series of images to his mind. 

Of K on his back and Adam running his hand along the expanse of exposed skin, up K’s torso, over his collar bone, up his neck to his jaw, the pads of Adam’s fingers brushing over Kavinsky’s full painted lips. How they’d part and Adam would slip a couple fingers inside. He’d let K get them good and wet, before he flipped him over. 

He’d just ruck up K’s sarong and open him up. Adam would be thorough, so thorough that K would be pushing back, desperate for _more_ , for Adam’s cock. Adam would give it to him, but he thought he might keep ahold of K’s hands. Not let him touch his dick. He’d hold Kavinsky’s arms above his head as he fucked him. Adam bet he could make K come untouched. 

K would probably like it. Adam would definitely like Kavinsky begging, the way he’d gasp at ragged breaths of ‘Adam, _please_.’

All Adam wanted was to take K home and take him a apart.

They broke for breath. There was something like a tent starting up under Kavinsky’s sarong and Adam knew K could feel his own cock straining against his jeans. Somehow K’s lipstick was just as perfect as when he was on stage. 

Adam felt heavy with want.

K’s lips were still parted and his pupils dilated. Adam held Kavinsky close, one hand resting on the small of K’s back; something possessive about it. There must have been some trace of intent on his face; a portent of what they would be doing tonight if Adam had his way, because K gripped Adam’s biceps tighter. This party was far from over, but Kavinsky was going home with him.

Some of their saliva was still gleaming on K’s bottom lip. Adam reached up, cupping K’s chin, and ran his thumb over K’s lip and through the spit and lipstick. He let his thumb drag off K’s lip, off his face entirely, and with a sick delight he saw a trail of red in its wake. The lipstick smeared across K’s lower cheek, a vivid stroke of red.

Adam pushed himself close to Kavinsky again, ducking slightly to speak into his ear. “I am going to _wreck_ you.” 

K shivered violently. Adam felt it through the thin rayon of his shirt. Kavinsky pulled back and looked up at Adam, that hungry thing in K’s eyes.

Kavinsky grabbed Adam’s hand, threading their fingers. “Go on then.”

Adam pulled Kavinsky from the dance floor, out passed the photo booths and the rented arcade games, through the partiers crowding the front door and taking hits off spliffs and into the clear cool night air with every intention of making good on his word.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW FIVE AND A HALF MONTHS LATER!! This has taken a while (ngl I hit a few snags, took a three week break for a family reunion, and real life kept interfering of course lmao) but here it is and I am really excited to have this act done! I hope you have enjoyed it!! Let me know what intrigued you as there are two more on the way!!
> 
> In this piece I have made some references to specific songs, so I’ve added hyper-links in the text so you can listen to them while reading - [alternatively I have created a Spotify playlist for songs inspired and featured in this work.](https://open.spotify.com/user/rap196qql6dq18bbm75xt5dtd/playlist/5XGxVsIZKnCkcjGNYUZYOh?si=mHdcPHCESWuJhaoUjFQMlQ) Full disclosure it is a grab-bag of styles and genres. Check it out!
> 
> [Here are some visuals for the badger tat I was trying to describe K having.](https://www.followtheblackrabbit.com/portfolio/) You might have seen a post of Beth Cavener’s piece regarding the Four Humors floating around tumblr and the rest of her work is just as compelling. This is not the last we will hear about Kavinsky’s House Pride tattoo. 
> 
> For real!!! Please let me know what you liked (or disliked), what intrigued you most, or what really struck you about this piece. If you don’t tell me, I won’t know!! I don’t care if someone already commented about your favorite part or said what you were thinking!!! Tell me anyway!! I want to hear from you!!
> 
> As I hope you can tell, I put a lot of effort into writing this and the only reward I have is when readers give me their thoughts on what I have taken the time to create. A kudo is all very well and good, but it tells me nothing of what you really thought of the piece. After reading 31k worth of material you must have some reaction and I invite you to share it!
> 
> Alternatively, if writing a comment really is like pulling teeth for you but you still enjoyed this act and want to show it, you can [buy me a coffee!](https://ko-fi.com/M4M65HKZ)

**Author's Note:**

> So this started out as a fun little one-shot because I wanted to see how Adam would handle the ramifications of the one-night-stand he had with Kavinsky in kiiouex’s ‘Of Your Own Free Will’ and you all know me....I got carried away hahaha. So now this will be a multi-part work. I am optimistically slating it to be three acts, but idk we will see. 
> 
> Title and act headings are taken from [Justin Vernon + Aaron Dessner’s ‘Big Red Machine’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cpqUkuXWOg&app=desktop) from ‘This Disc’ of the _Dark Was the Night_ album.
> 
> Also I have a Spotify playlist for this work that can be found [here!](https://open.spotify.com/user/rap196qql6dq18bbm75xt5dtd/playlist/5XGxVsIZKnCkcjGNYUZYOh?si=Jt6mtp4tRNubzQL6qn3Wmw)


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